Today I am on Lesson 71, "Only God's plan for salvation will work."
I have been writing another blog about my job, which is full of learning opportunities and challenges. I have tried to look at it through the lens of ACIM on that blog, but that has felt a bit odd. This is a place where my ACIM journey is the focus, not the job! What a relief!
This morning's lesson makes the suggestion to spend quiet time absorbing the lesson, and as part of that to ask 3 questions.
What would You have me do today?
Where would you have me go?
What would you have me say and to whom?
I did my best with this in meditation and the answer came: "Start a blog about your ACIM journey." I know there are many of them, but I do feel a sense of joy and anticipation about this! I will enjoy it, regardless of the outcome. And so here it is! I am quite a "serious" student and I want to record the insights, challenges and miracles. Hmmh. ACIM A =? C= Challenges, I = Insights, M= Miracles A...., well let's see. How about Awareness? I like! Awareness, Challenges, Insights and Miracles. A Course in Miracles. My ACIM blog.
So what is my current challenge? Basically I feel victimized at work. I don't want to go into the detail here, I did that somewhere else and you can see it in all its glory here. But in a nutshell, I feel overloaded with work and not just me, but the whole team is struggling. I'm grappling with whether to lodge an actual grievance, confront my boss/es, go sick, etc. What struck me in today's lesson were the lines: "...let us rejoice that there is an answer to what seems to be a conflict with no resolution possible. All things are possible to God. Salvation must be yours because of His plan, which cannot fail."
How encouraging is that! Regardless of the situation I appear to face, the reality is that God has a plan for my salvation....which cannot fail. I don't know what it is at the moment in relation to my current job situation.
I'm aware of the resistance I have to asking God for help. One of the big things in my life was that I grew up in a fundamentalist Christian home and it has left me with some baggage. Though quite a lot of it has been resolved, I still have the sense that God's plan, God's will, entails some big sacrifice on my part. Trusting that God is only wanting me to be healed, and that means happy, is a radical undoing of my version of ego, separateness and fear.
Still, I am in a situation which I see a conflict "with no resolution possible." In some ways there is really no choice but to hand the mess to God.
Today, I don't actively need to deal with the situation. It is a Sunday, and I did make the choice not to bring work home. Today, I can practise handing it over. God sees the situation, me, the whole big picture. I can just relax about it.
One question I have is, as a student of ACIM, would it ever be right to make a formal grievance? Supposing I did so from the most loving place within myself, with the intention of highlighting an abuse, injustice, etc?
A few years ago, I was in an abusive living situation. I started studying ACIM at that time, and it was Peace that became a mantra. My intention was peace, as best I understood it. Just 6 weeks after starting the Course I had to act in a radical way to get a person who was physically abusive out of my home. I did do it without hostility to him, but it did involve force...it seems so long ago, but at the time, I was frightened for my life. This is a more complicated situation, and as challenging in its own way. It is affecting not just me but other people. If I put in a grievance or make some other assertive outer response, it might just improve things for them. Again, I don't know the answer.
But I do know that God's Answer would be a miracle, and I think I was guided to the words of Robert Perry: " The miracle frees us from the prison of the past and thus releases the future. It collapses time...it frees us from having to free ourselves...the miracle frees us instantaneously, for it does not respect time and its laws of gradual change. It is our right.....We are freed of having to wait for it, for it is always there, waiting on us...We are called to be miracle workers, to miraculously release others from their imprisonment, but first we must accept miracle-mindedness for ourselves." (From The Answer is a Miracle by Robert Perry and Allen Watson, P.18)
I'm on my second journey through the workbook and must say it's a different experience this time round, much more "real." This situation at work is a bundle of "clouds" obscuring the light, can I accept I am responsible, it is a reflection of my inner world and so the work I have to do is in my inner world first?
Prayer for today, and until the situation is resolved:
"Dear God, please take hold of this situation at work. I am willing to do what You guide me to do. I claim the miracle that is waiting for me. I know that Your will for me is joy and freedom, not misery and bondage. I stop struggling and I trust that I will see Your Answer. And so it is."
It is wonderful that I do feel the truth of this, a sense of anticipation and peace tell me something has already happened. Thank You God!
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