Lesson 220: Review: “I am not a body.  I am free.  For I am still as God created me.”  “There is no peace except the peace of God.  

The Course gives us practice returning to the message. 

We forget on and on and on.  We stumble temporarily.

Sometimes it seems like forever since we first found ourselves lying on the floor, unable to take an action step, even just a little nudge, unable to reverse our thinking. 

Sometimes it feels like there is no reprieve from this self hatred that we cultivate constantly. 

Even if we think we actually like ourselves or love ourselves, there are still many ways that we we discover we have secretly hidden this clogged energy that occurs simultaneously when we put ourselves into the position of doing something that is self-loathing.

Sometimes this loathing we can’t detect.

Thus, it gets immersed within some other behavior that seems more acceptable so we just carry on without stopping to set our minds straight.  We all have these moments that seem unbearable.

We ask ourselves how will we go on with such a fragmented sense of self that we can’t muster the willingness to back ourselves around to our own corner where we feel at home. 

We just feel sorry for ourselves and feel completely at a loss about finding a better way.

The Course- in Jesus’s words- is gentle and with kind compassion. Jesus is holding our hands in this process of realizing how truly frozen we are.

Jesus gives us the keys to the kingdom because he gets what the nature of our human suffering is like. 

Jesus was there in the human form as well and has plenty of His own human suffering in the life living in the body.  He can sure empathize with what the ego does to bring us to our knees with no real reason at all beyond madness for it.  The ego just like to make itself bigger in order to extend its life.

Jesus gives us the way to finally arrive home where we no longer feel this deep, serious longing and wretchedness. 

We can just sit and feel what it feels to be nurtured in the most profound and glorious way.

Jesus is giving us the plain path to get home. 

And God loves us with this love we can’t even fathom it is so stupendous.

This means that our journey from this moment forward will have moments of challenge- when we get on our knees and pray for solace from the insanity.

But we will never be without hope once we realize the Course’s message is truly valid. 

All we have to do is listen and accept the message as the truth.  Then our days of being lost are gone.  God is always going to hold our hands when we get sad regardless of how devastated we may feel.  God is now there always and will be there always because we now have this clear vision of the degree to which God is loving and devoted.

Realizing this changes everything.

Now nothing is going to have such serious reverberations on us because we now are certain God is our best friend in addition to being the perfectly nurturing parent we so desire. 

This means we never again have a moment that feels like we have nothing on which we can rely.  We now have God.

This allows us to feel confident and certain.  

This changes how we explore the world.

Now we have grateful hearts that are full of enthusiasm and curiosity for the days we encounter.

This curiosity allows us to ask questions and be open to suggestion. 

This curiosity makes us teachable, and if we are teachable we can get to that shift in consciousness that results in peace. 

Thus, we are allowing God’s suggestions to sink in and guide us.   With practice, we get decreasingly less jammed up over time because we develop this bond with God that allows us to carry our faith with us all the time.    God never leaves us empty handed.