Above All Else...

Above all else I want to see things differently. I really do. I think I've had plenty of proof to know that alone I can't accomplish peace, love and joy. And that every time I've asked God for help, peace, love and joy is what I've received. All I've experienced when I listen to my ego is disappointment and condemnation. "I can't do anything right, I never finish anything, I'm a failure and why have I always been poor and other people are rich, what have I done to deserve this?" My ego answers that I'm flawed, that I'm not good enough, that I've made horrible mistakes in my life that I can't change, that God is punishing me.

When I allow myself to be guided by God, not only do I feel differently but people see me differently. At these times, people that I have just met will say amazing and surprising things to me. These are real words, the best I can recall, that virtual strangers have said to me when I've been at my best: "There's just something special about you. You know, you meet people sometimes that you just feel a connection to." and "Are you a Christian, do you believe in God? I hope you don't mind me asking but there is just a certain light in your eyes."

Sometimes it's not words that I notice but that people are drawn to me, like they will go out of their way to talk to me. Complete strangers! It couldn't be more obvious at these times that God brought us together because there is something to learn. But, in A Course in Miracles it says there are no chance meetings. I am working on being aware that with every person I meet and everyone I'm around there is a chance to learn. Above all else, I want to see things differently.

I know I can because I have briefly before. I wrote in my post "Fear, Who Cares", about an experience that I had while meditating when I told God I wanted to know Him, myself, peace, love and joy. God answered my prayer right then and there. A couple of years later before meditating I prayed to God that I really needed his help because I had forgotten for a time what he had showed me. I hadn't forgotten the experience but I had forgotten that brief awareness that I am part of God and I am peace, love and joy. So, he showed me again. It wasn't as intense as the first meditation when God visited, but the experience was sustained through out most of day. When I was with God and felt the oneness with God, I experienced a particular feeling or vibration of the knowledge of the interconnectedness all of us have with everyone and all things.

If this doesn't make much since, I apologize. It just so hard to put into words. It's an experience beyond the world of words. Anyway, the rest of the day everything I touched, everyone and everything I saw, I could feel that vibration of divine creation and see the light of creation. It was like God's fingerprints were all over everything.

A Course in Miracles is more eloquent in describing what I experienced: "In many only the spark remains, for the Great Rays are obscured. Yet God has kept the spark alive so that the Rays can never be completely forgotten. If you but see the little spark you will learn of the greater light, for the Rays are there unseen. Perceiving the spark will heal, but knowing the light will create. Yet the separation was a descent from magnitude to littleness. But the spark is still as pure as the Great Light, because it is the remaining call of creation. Put all your faith in it, and God Himself will answer you."

I read this today along with my lesson. Both reminded me that I can and I will see things differently. In today's lesson, "Above all else, I want to see things differently", I read: "You see a lot of separate things about you, which really means you are not seeing at all. You either see or not. When you have seen one thing differently, you will see all things differently. The light you will see in any one of them is the same light you will see in them all." Further down the lesson it says, "You could, in fact, gain vision from just that table, if you would withdraw all your own ideas from it, and look upon it with a completely open mind. It has something to show you; something beautiful and clean and of infinite value, full of happiness and hope. Hidden under all your ideas about it is its real purpose, the purpose it shares with all the universe."

So, this is my goal, from here on out. I want to give gifts that are worthy of God. What is a more worthy gift than seeing others for who they really are as God created them? I believe by doing this I will stop condemning myself and listening to my ego. If I see the "spark of light" in everyone else how can I not see it in myself? I'm going to try to only see the truth. I'm going to try to believe in only the truth and to look past negativity and let it go. Give negativity all the meaning it has for me, which it has no meaning not being created by God.

I want to give my attention to only what is "beautiful and clean and of infinite value, full of happiness and hope" , in everyone and every situation.