Prayer has helped me heal my life.
A Course in Miracles tells us that “prayer is the medium of miracles.” ACIM says, “Prayer is a way offered by the Holy Spirit to reach God.” And “reaching” God, that connection, heals our mind, and transforms our lives.
I prayed so many times to simply be loving, to resist being mean and unkind. I truly was willing to let go of the past forever and I’ve been amazed at the miraculous healing transformation.
That’s why I teach prayer as foundational to everything that offer.
Prayer is often misunderstood, but ACIM is very clear, “Prayer is a stepping aside; a letting go, a quiet time of listening and loving. It should not be confused with supplication of any kind, because it is a way of remembering your holiness.”
You may not know this about me, but I was trained as a Science of Mind Practitioner at the Agape International Spiritual Center. I’ve been steeped in the New Thought teachings of affirmative prayer. Once I learned the power of prayer, no matter how low and desperate I felt, I kept praying.
Prayer works.
As I write this we’re wrapping up my Spiritual Counseling Training Intensive in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. I feel so blessed to be able to share what is the most valuable thing in my life – connection with Spirit.
For so long I really struggled with resistance and reluctance. I had a deep desire to be able to share spirituality as a minister, teacher and counselor, but I still had a deep sense of unworthiness that got in my way. Fortunately, I prayed A LOT and I found the way out of that unworthiness and now it is the foundation of what I share in all of my offerings. It’s the reason why I write daily inspiration and why I’ve been recording a new prayer and posting it each day for 11 years now.
Prayer works. Spiritual practice heals.
Spiritual practice is more than a few minutes a day, it’s how we live our life.
Spiritual practice is an active practice of non-judgment, which is what true forgiveness is.
And yet, so many times I would pray for healing, but then not allow it. I would block the healing insights, the inspiration of Love, the clear guidance. I’d block all that I’d prayed for with judgmental and unkind thoughts.
Many of us have a willingness for healing, but still, we don’t allow it. We pray to receive, and then don’t actually allow ourselves to receive because of that ancient guilt and unworthiness.
Our own Higher Holy Spirit Self will give us all the healing we need if we allow it, but instead we treasure our judgments and opinions and build little altars in our heart and mind to keep them right in front of us, gathering evidence to try to support the case that they are worthwhile.
I finally realized that I was blocking my answered prayer by ruminating on my hurts and keeping the blocks to Love alive in my heart. I was feeding the fire of my Self-destruction, but I didn’t know it.
I thought that if I could hold onto my resentments and never forget the past hurts that I’d somehow be protected from future hurts. I dedicated so much energy to trying to protect myself, never realizing that it was those active resentments and regrets that were hurting me now.
A Course in Miracles tells us that we have no actual problems. It’s just the incorrect perception of an imaginary problem. We believe we are no longer unified with our Creator and that’s why we think we have a problem, and because we think it, we feel it and because we feel it, we believe it and on and on. That’s why we believe in punishment. We punish ourselves and we punish others.
This intense sense of separation began with a tiny mad idea. It began with a crazy thought that wasn’t even true. What was that thought? I believe it was some version of “better than and less than.” Without the belief in better than and less than, separation thinking would have died out. If we didn’t like comparison so much it would have died out.
In my Masterful Living Course community we say, “compare and despair.”
Forgiveness is the way out of all of this. It’s the only way out and it works. Forgiveness has literally saved my life. Forgiveness is letting go of the meaning I made of things. It’s letting go of the belief in better than and less than. I prayed thousands of times to forgive everything and it continues to work.
I prayed to forgive everything in all directions of time and space.
I prayed to forgive what I could remember I’d been offended by and what I didn’t.
True forgiveness is developing the ability to really practice the ACIM lessons. Lesson 25 helped me so much. “I don’t know what anything is for.” If I’ve gotten so lost in the tiny mad idea of better than and less than that my perspective is completely off, how can I know what anything is for? If I’m upset, I must have decided wrongly.
A lot of people say they’d like to forgive, but they don’t actually mean it. What they really mean is, I’d like to be free of this pain AND hold onto my judgments about what happened. That’s not forgiveness. That’s a fantasy of forgiveness.
When I first began teaching forgiveness workshops, in fact, in the very first workshop I ever did back in 2000, I learned a lot from the people who attended. One of the primary reasons that people were coming to my workshops or to a counseling session with me was that they had forgiven, but they didn’t feel free. They hadn’t actually forgiven, but they’d said they had. If they had truly forgiven they would have felt free.
So often I heard stories from one wonderful person after another who told me that they’d forgiven, but they were still so bothered and upset about what happened. I heard things such as, “my father molested me when I was a child. I have forgiven him so many times. I really just want to move on, but it still bothers me and I can’t seem to get free. Why can’t I let go?”
In a very real sense, it doesn’t matter why.
Our Higher Holy Spirit Self knows precisely why. Let’s commune with the Higher Holy Spirit Self by the means of prayer and simply ask Spirit to lift the burden from us. That’s what Jesus tells us in ACIM. He asks that we stop trying to do everything ourselves and actually ALLOW the healing to happen.
I learned HOW to ALLOW the healing.
I’m very practical. I’ve had enough of BS. I really don’t wish to read a lot of books and gather more information. I’m truly focused on healing my mind and sharing with others helps me to “get it” more clearly. I love joining with others. I love being the two or more gathered in the name and the nature of Christ. I’m grateful technology allows us to do this.
WE ARE SO BLESSED!
With the technology we have we can transcend time and space to pray together and to join together. That’s why I love recording a new prayer every day and a new episode of my podcast each week. I love teaching classes on Zoom. It’s so wonderful to use technology to connect.
Some people are feeling intensely emotionally and mentally challenged right now and I’m being led to talk about these things in my podcast. You might be interested in my topic this past week: How to Have Peace Instead of Worry. You can listen to it now..
People have told me they got engaged to be married, or healed their relationships and they attributed it to their living A Course in Miracles. They said they’d really listened and applied what I shared in the many episodes of my podcast about relationship. It’s all about the application, the allowance, the living it. Listening isn’t healing. It’s the active practice of forgiveness that opens our heart to live the Love.
And that’s why TODAY, you can join me, kironJ Gardner and more friends on zoom. kironJ is such an inspiration and I’m so glad we’ll get to be together on zoom today. This will be powerful! We’ll have a spiritual celebration together with inspiration and music – we call it Sundays With Spirit. Please invite your family! If you can’t join us, you can catch the replay! Because we’re going to be live on video, you’ll have to register to get the details. All are welcome, there’s no charge, but you do have to register, unless you’ve already registered in the past.
When you register, you’ll also get easy access to past services with Lisa Natoli, Jon Mundy, David Hoffmeister, Maureen Muldoon and more. If you’ve already registered for a previous Sunday – you don’t need to register again, you’ll get a reminder with the details automatically.
I’ve used prayer to heal my life, and it’s been nothing short of miraculous. If you’re interested, join my Prayer Power class – you can get started right now. For years, this has only been available to folks in Masterful Living, but under the circumstances we have in the world right now, I was guided to open it to anyone. Join us for this class, which is Part 1 of a four part series – and then carry on if you feel inspired!
Also, my Stop Playing Small Retreat was going to be in UK next month, but now it’s being offered online, so all can join. This online retreat is for folks who are frustrated with feeling stuck and fearful. It’s designed for those who’d like to bring on a breakthrough so they can move forward with confidence toward their heart’s desire in any area of their life. Click here for details.
I look forward to our Sunday gathering today. It means so much that we can join together and love on each other!
