Amazing Grace!

Guilt, shame, poor self image, depression, feelings of worthlesness. These are epidemic in our culture today; especially here in the United States. So many people that I encounter in my daily life seem to be haunted by the shadow of past hurts or the shame of things they have done. In Science of Mind, we teach that what you are inside - your inner man or woman - is perfectly reflected in your outer reality. In other words, your outer world is merely a reflection of who you are inside. If the inside is dark, hurt and feels unworthy, is it any wonder that your reality is not so wonderful?

It is easy to see that if you feel unworthy, shameful, guillty with a "weak worm of the dust" mentality, that these feelings will outpicture in your life. The key needed for us to be released from this prison of hurt, pain and shame is to understand God's Grace. Grace is a vey misunderstood concept and I felt it was now the time to turn the spotlight of Truth on it.

Grace is never earned. You cannot receive Grace through good works or kind thoughts. Grace is a state of being One with God, in sync with the flow of God's love for you. You earned your Grace long before you were born. It is your birthright. You are beloved of God, no matter what you have done, who you have hurt, what wrong you have committed or what wrong has been committed upon you. God's love for you began long before you had a body or a human personality. God's love for you is unconditional - it never wavers, it never ceases.

You are not a surprise to God. The Great Mind we call God has known you forever and will know you forever more. Long before your sojourn here on Earth began, you were a friend of God. God created you - do you not know that He/She knows you better than you can ever know yourself? Indeed, you and God are one substance, one mind. God's love is unconditional, not bound by judgement or condemnation, as is human love. You do not have to "behave" to receive God's Grace. You do not have to be Holy to receive God's Grace. You do not have to go to church to receive God's Grace. You do not have to receive Jesus and your "savior and Lord" to receive Grace. You earned grace the moment God created you with Her thought and gave you life with a Word. Nothing can change that fact.

How then do we become consciously aware that we are in a state of Grace? All you must do is to accept God into your life as your friend, your strength and your great inner voice. That inner voice of God provides 24/7 counseling service free of charge and is never closed! You see, you really are never out of God's loving Grace; you just forget and deny that you are in it, therefore this becomes your truth. God does not move away from you, but often you and I have moved away from God. God is as constant as the Northern Star, always loving, always welcoming you home.

Grace is the healing balm that soothes all hurts, heals all wounds, restores our faith and our power. Grace is eternal forgiveness whether we deserve it or not. We never deserve God's Grace but we always get it, if we are open to it. Our job is to get out of God's way, open our hearts, know that God knows exactly who and what we are and not only does He not care but She is proud of us and celebrates us. You are a work in progress from your first breath to your last. You are never a finished product and knowing this, God does not expect anything from you but to love yourself and to be the best you know how to be at that point in time.

Loving yourself is so important. If you cannot love yourself, how can you love another? You were made by God the way She/He intended you to be made - perfect substance made from a Perfect Mind. That you fall short is due to your error thinking, it is not a flaw in the your design. You have the power to change what you believe; to change what you allow into your mind, into your home and into your life. You have the power to rise above all your past errors, all your past hurts and soar into the life you were born to live.

Try this exerecise right now. Sit quietly and imagine God's Grace flowing over you from the top of your head, down the sides of your face, over your arms and chest, down your legs to the limit of your extremities. Feel the warmth, the peace, the joy sweep over you as the love of God flows over and through you. Keep the Grace flowing until you feel renewed in body, mind and spirit. You probably will feel like you are being caressed with something soft, warm and delightful.

Do this as often as you wish, knowing as you do it that it is God holding and loving you. God loves you so much more that any human is capable of loving anything or anyone. God's love is a love beyond our imagining but perhaps if you think of the most powerful feelings of love you have ever experienced and then square them - you may have an idea of how God feels about you. You are beloved of God because you are God in microcosm. You are to God as your fingers are to your hand - distinct but never separate.

Be peaceful, no matter who you think you are, God knows you and God loves you anyway! Her Grace is yours for the asking and the receiving. Open the windows of your life and let the Light of God shine in!

Next week: The Sentry at The Gate!

The Tyranny of Facts

"Just the facts, ma'am, just the facts"! If you are old enough to name the wildly popular TV show that this line came from, then you are getting on a bit, aren't you? Yes, me too! That phrase was spoken by Seargent Joe Friday of the Los Angeles Police Department on "Dragnet" every week for over 10 years! Our society has a great reverence for "facts"; so much so that we are told that to depart from the world of fact is a symptom of mental illness! In America it seems that everything comes down to the facts.


I am sure that no one would dispute that yesterday's fact soon becomes today's non-sense and today's fact is tomorrow's myth. The facts are very fluid; why just 100 years ago the idea of space travel was pure science fiction, taken seriously by no one. Now, if we had the will, we could easily have bases on the moon, Mars and perhaps the moons of Jupiter. Space travel is so routine that very few get up early enough to watch a shuttle launch. Just a few hundred years ago, a scientist could be burned at the stake for suggesting that the Earth was not the center of the Universe and that the Earth revolved around the Sun. Heresy! Now, it is hard for us to imagine that anyone really believed that the Sun revolved around the Earth or that Jupiter drove the Sun across the sky in his chariot! But these were facts taught to every child in school, preached in church and temple.

So why then do most of us live our lives bound by the chains of "fact"? The doctor gives us a diagnosis of cancer and many start preparing to die. The newspaper or the television tells us that flu season is here and we rush off for a flu shot. Bloomberg says that the economy is soft and inflation is a real worry so we sell our stocks and help make the prophesy come true! Most of us live as slaves to the Tyranny of Fact. What "they" say rules our lives in so many cases.

What is a fact? It is the hardened residue of someone else's thinking. All thought is creative and it impacts our personal world and if taken in by others can impact their personal reality as well. Once a stream of thought permeates enough minds it hardens into a cultural fact. A belief turns into "just the way it is". It has been said that facts are the bathtub ring of our lives.

Here is a big truth, you may want to sit down for this one! Nothing is just the way it is! Everything is just the way we believe it is and nothing more. Stop believing in cancer and the cancer rate plummets; stop believing that men are all rats and a decent man will show up; stop believing that women are manipulative and controlling and a sweet loving woman will appear in your world.

In our lives NOTHING is controlled outside of us. It all begins and ends with us! We are the Christ in our lives. We are the Alpha and the Omega! We have been given as our birthright by the Creator of the Universe the right and the power to make so whatever we can believe in. Don't believe me, read your Bible! Jesus The Christ said it over and over. Some people do not believe that Jesus healed or raised the dead. I am not sure but I have seen people cured of MS, of Cerebral Palsy, or Cancer, just by a change in their Truth. When the Bible says that the Truth will set you free it is exactly right.

Here is the Truth, the whole Truth and nothing but the Truth. The facts only have power if you give them the power of your belief and you make them your Truth. Your Truth is the creator of your personal life experience. Your life is a projection of your Truth (your belief system, your life view).

If you can see a perfect, totally well person where the Doctor sees a Cancer patient; then you can heal that person, even if it is you! I know because I have done it several times in my life. Get clear on this - you cannot hope - hope is delayed disappointment. You cannot wish- wishes are the cotton candy of the spiritual world. You cannot think - that is of the intellect and it is good for the How but does not heal or create. You must know to the depths of your being that this person, this situation is perfect, wholly well and be able to see the person or condition as such. If you can do this, you can create anything, heal anything, have anything. If you cannot then you will live life strangled by the "facts", living life at the mercy of what "they" say.

I choose freedom. I choose power. I choose that Mind that was in the Christ Jesus and that is our birthright. I choose the Key to the Universe which is that my thinking, speaking and choosing is the creator of my life. I choose to allow only that which I want and which I desire into my Mind. I choose to think of and speak of only what I will have, what I will create for those I love, what I want in my world. Focus on the flowers and the weeds die. Focus on the Light and the Darkness disappears.

May you be free forever from the facts. Make your own heaven right here and right now. Live your Truth and be free.

Next week: Grace