I choose the second place to gain the first.

I am in love with Jesus.

Lately all I’ve been doing is laughing. Yesterday the owners of the Inn said I can bring Enzo with me (Yes!) … however …. he has to be an entirely outside cat. My heart just sunk to the ground. They said I can keep him in the garage.

I started to explain how it would work if he was inside but they had already made their decision. I sat there for a second in sheer disappointment … but then! BUT THEN! It’s so good, I remembered Heaven! This course is genius. I love Jesus so much. I looked across the table and remembered: these are my brothers who I love. They are giving me everything.

I am not here to get my way within a dream. I am here for the salvation of the world. I am here to remember God in everyone and everything, in every event, in every encounter.

I am restored to sanity and joy in the instant I remember “to remember” Heaven.

Jesus was in my head speaking, saying: Don’t defend yourself. Be happy. He gets to live here. The guests will love him. Don’t worry. This is great.

And in that moment, it was great! I felt a feeling of total peace wash over me.

I realized just how much of my life I’ve spent manipulating and controlling to get my way. Explaining. Trying to rearrange so that things works out the way I think they should work out. I kept thinking we could work out a compromise situation that would make everyone happy.

I choose the second place to gain the first.

I choose to step back and let Him lead the way.

I choose Heaven over illusions.

I choose to remember this is a journey, a great adventure of creation.

Who would choose a sigh and sadness when they can just as easily choose laughter??

Who would stall & linger in depression when they can just as easily choose the peace of God?

Easy questions with easy answers.

And so I was immediately happy and had a day filled with miracles - easy, effortless interactions with everyone … but then later I was back to obsessing about the cat being cold this winter. And there is Jesus again, in my head, saying: DROP IT! FORGET ABOUT THE CAT! Who would choose illusions over the joy of Heaven?

And then I burst out laughing again. I opened up A Course in Miracles, saying, Okay, give me something I need to read and it landed on Chapter 23, Section III: Salvation without Compromise.

What a perfect message!

You will know if you are compromising because you will have lost your peace and joy. You will feel a sudden heaviness on your heart, like you’ve been defeated. And when you are attempting to get your way, it doesn’t feel good, and that is attack. That is compromise.

Salvation is no compromise of any kind. Salvation gives up nothing. It is complete for everyone. Let the idea of compromise but enter, and the awareness of salvation’s purpose is lost because it is not recognized. This course is easy just because it makes no compromise. Yet it seems difficult to those who still believe that compromise is possible.

“Mistake not truce for peace, nor compromise for the escape from conflict.”

That is so awesome. I thought getting my cat inside the house would end the conflict, but that’s a compromise approach. Remembering Heaven is what ends the conflict.

Immediately, instantaneously, and forever.

“To be released from conflict means that it is over. The door is open; you have left the battleground.”

So I was checking out the internet for cat houses and tips for keeping a cat warm in the winter and meanwhile Enzo (who by the way, is 90% outside cat anyways!) is playing with a hair clip of mine, throwing it in the air and catching it, and it landed in my nightstand which usually is filled with books and junk but which now are empty. And they are two sturdy wood boxes stacked on top of each other, and I look over and there is Enzo, lying in one of them … happy as can be! It was so funny. His cat house!

So I put them side by side, and he loves it. I’ll put it in the garage attic with heating pads and heating lights and it will work out great.

I’m done with trying to get my way. I’m done with trying to figure out what my needs are and how I can get them taken care of. I choose the second place to gain the first.

There is only the Will of God. All things we perceive are upside down until we listen to the Voice for God. My Father’s Will for me is perfect happiness.

If I am not perfectly happy, then I must be following a different will because God’s Will for me is perfect happiness.

Father, I am glad that nothing I imagine contradicts what You would have me be. It is Your Will that I be wholly safe, eternally at peace.

!!!!!

I love it. It is God’s Will that I be wholly safe, eternally at peace.

And happily I share that Will which You, my Father, gave as part of me.

This entry was posted on Sunday, November 23rd, 2008 at 7:07 am and is filed under Workbook Lessons, a course in miracles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.