ThanksForGiving, God!: ACIM Lesson 123

It’s Thanksgiving Eve here in the U.S. and we’re gettin’ all up in whatever tomorrow means to us. For some, it’s a time of fun and celebration, gathering and feasting with loved ones. For others, it’s a dreaded obligatory experience that sucks the fun out of dysfunctional family dynamics.

For many it’s a both, or a choice to opt for neither.

Regardless of your plans for the day, there is a way to center yourself in a consciousness of gratitude, which is after all the meaning of this day.

A Course in Miracles Workbook lesson 123, I thank my father for His gifts to me has this gorgeous message:

“A day devoted now to gratitude will add the benefit of some insight into the real extent of all the gains which you have made; the gifts you have received. ²Be glad today, in loving thankfulness, your Father has not left you to yourself, nor let you wander in the dark alone. ³Be grateful He has saved you from the self you thought you made to take the place of Him and His creation. ⁴Give Him thanks today.
Give thanks that He has not abandoned you, and that His Love forever will remain shining on you, forever without change. ²Give thanks as well that you are changeless, for the Son He loves is changeless as Himself. ³Be grateful you are saved. ⁴Be glad you have a function in salvation to fulfill. ⁵Be thankful that your value far transcends your meager gifts and petty judgments of the one whom God established as His Son.
Today in gratitude we lift our hearts above despair, and raise our thankful eyes, no longer looking downward to the dust. ²We sing the song of thankfulness today, in honor of the Self that God has willed to be our true Identity in Him.³Today we smile on everyone we see, and walk with lightened footsteps as we go to do what is appointed us to do.”
ACIM W-pI.123.2-4.

This lesson is teaching us to have gratitude for who we are – and for who our bros are – our true identity as God’s son. When Jesus talks about the gifts we have received, I think of the one gift we have in this world that puts us back in touch with that true identity – that of true forgiveness.

True forgiveness is a portal to Heaven – to our oneness with all our brothers. It is the antidote to the poison of fearful thoughts in our minds – which is the cause of all dysfunction of any kind.

Forgiveness is the gift for which I am most grateful, because it has healed so many of my false perceptions and transformed my life to a place where it is almost unrecognizable to me.

The steps of the process of true forgiveness as taught in A Course in Miracles are:

I forgive you / this situation because there is nothing to forgive
I remember I am dreaming an illusion that the ego mind made up and I am projecting it onto you/this situation
I forgive myself for believing in the illusion
I ask Spirit to help me see this situation differently and I release it to Him to be healed

True forgiveness returns us to sanity, seeing the innocence in the other person – our bro – so we can see it in ourselves. It reminds us that what is true is the perfection of God in each of us, and what is fake and illusory is anything else.

Forgiveness dispels the false belief in the ego’s projection of guilt and dissolves it into light.

There was a time when I believed that all of my problems, challenges, struggles, and issues were someone else’s fault. That other people or situations (out of my control, of course) were responsible for my unhappiness. Parents, husbands, family members, friends, jobs, finances, lack of education, weight, hormones, blah blah blah whatEVER.

I thought that others had been set up for a better life, or been luckier, or maybe more deserving or had better karma – and I carried a shitload of resentment about that. It seemed like everyone else got to have happier relationships, or were better off financially, or had more fulfilling careers, or better bodies, or greater fill-in-the-f*cking blank than I did.

What the gift of forgiveness helped me to shift to was a place of gratitude for all of what I formerly judged as the bad or negative things in my life. That actually, those challenges that I went through taught me things. Those conflicted partnerships inspired me to heal parts of myself so that I could be ready for the peaceful and loving one I have now. My former bosses and jobs I had called forth in me abilities and talents that I didn’t think I possessed, which ultimately gave me the confidence to become self-employed in my dream job. Estrangement from loved ones motivated me to seek a better way and find my way back to peace in all of my relationships. Financial challenges lit a flame under my ass to become more responsible with money. Whatever my parents were not able to give me I was meant to learn to provide to myself by being aligned with the abundance of God that is the truth of us all.

I could go on and on describing all of the ways in which the people and situations I used to blame and judge turned out to be companions and doorways leading to a life of greater love, peace, joy, abundance, fun, success, fulfilling work and lovely adventures than I could have ever imagined.

Instead, I’ll just say Thanksforgiving, God.