Welcome to Bill's Place.
A collection of Friends In Recovery.
Featuring a weekly Step Study from various 12 Step Recovery literature.
With the occasional inspirational message or message pertaining to a broad spectrum of varied spiritual practices.
An open forum for discussion of the aforementioned Step Study and inspirational/spiritual practice messages.
"Dance like there's no one watching and love like you've never been hurt."
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/BillsPlace/
A Course in Miracles
The Text
Chapter 7 The Gifts of the Kingdom
XI. The State of GraceThe Holy Spirit will always guide you truly, because your joy is his. This is his will for everyone because he speaks for the Kingdom of God, which is joy. Following him is therefore the easiest thing in the world, and the only thing that is easy, because it is not of the world. It is therefore natural. The world goes against your nature, being out of accord with God's laws. The world perceives orders of difficulty in everything. This is because the ego perceives nothing as wholly desirable. By demonstrating to yourself there is no order of difficulty in miracles, you will convince yourself that, in your natural state, there is no difficulty at all because it is a state of grace.
Grace is the natural state of every Son of God. When he is not in a state of grace, he is out of his natural environment and does not function well. Everything he does becomes a strain, because he was not created for the environment that he has made. He therefore cannot adapt to it, nor can he adapt it to him. There is no point in trying.
A Son of God is happy only when he knows he is with God. That is the only environment in which he will not experience strain, because that is where he belongs. It is also the only environment that is worthy of him, because his own worth is beyond anything he can make.
Consider the kingdom you have made and judge its worth fairly. Is it worthy to be a home for a child of God? Does it protect his peace and shine love upon him? Does it keep his heart untouched by fear, and allow him to give always, without any sense of loss? Does it teach him that this giving is his joy, and that God Himself thanks him for his giving? That is the only environment in which you can be happy. You cannot make it, any more than you can make yourself. It has been created for you, as you were created for it. God watches over his children and denies them nothing. Yet when they deny him they do not know this, because they deny themselves everything. You who could give the love of God to everything you see and touch and remember, are literally denying heaven to yourself.
I call upon you to remember that I have chosen you to teach the Kingdom to the Kingdom. There are no exceptions to this lesson, because the lack of exceptions is the lesson. Every Son who returns to the Kingdom with this lesson in his heart has healed the Sonship and given thanks to God. Everyone who learns this lesson has become the perfect teacher, because he has learned it of the Holy Spirit.
When a mind has only light, it knows only light. Its own radiance shines all around it, and extends out into the darkness of other minds, transforming them into majesty. The Majesty of God is there, for you to recognize and appreciate and know. Recognizing the Majesty of God as your brother is to accept your own inheritance. God gives only equally. If you recognize his gift in anyone, you have acknowledged what he has given you. Nothing is so easy to recognize as truth. This is the recognition that is immediate, clear and natural. You have trained yourself not to recognize it, and this has been very difficult for you.
Out of your natural environment you may well ask, "What is truth?" since truth is the environment by which and for which you were created. You do not know yourself, because you do not know your Creator. You do not know your creations because you do not know your brothers, who created them with you. I have already said that only the whole Sonship is worthy to be co-creator with God, because only the whole Sonship can create like him. Whenever you heal a brother by recognizing his worth, you are acknowledging his power to create and yours. He cannot have lost what you recognize, and you must have the glory you see in him. He is a co-creator with God with you. Deny his creative power, and you are denying yours and that of God who created you.
You cannot deny part of truth. You do not know your creations because you do not know their creator. You do not know yourself because you do not know yours. Your creations cannot establish your reality, any more than you can establish God's. But you can know both. Being is known by sharing. Because God shared his being with you, you can know him. But you must also know all he created, to know what they have shared. Without your Father you will not know your fatherhood. The Kingdom of God includes all his sons and their children, who are as like the sons as they are like the Father. Know, then, the sons of God, and you will know all creation.
A Course in Miracles
Workbook for Students
Lesson 50I am sustained by the Love of God.
Here is the answer to every problem that will confront you, today and tomorrow and throughout time. In this world, you believe you are sustained by everything but God.
Your faith is placed in the most trivial and insane symbols; pills, money, "protective" clothing, influence, prestige, being liked, knowing the "right" people, and an endless list of forms of nothingness that you endow with magical powers.
All these things are your replacements for the Love of God. All these things are cherished to ensure a body identification. They are songs of praise to the ego. Do not put your faith in the worthless. It will not sustain you.
Only the Love of God will protect you in all circumstances. It will lift you out of every trial, and raise you high above all the perceived dangers of this world into a climate of perfect peace and safety. It will transport you into a state of mind that nothing can threaten, nothing can disturb, and where nothing can intrude upon the eternal calm of the Son of God.
Put not your faith in illusions. They will fail you. Put all your faith in the Love of God within you; eternal, changeless and forever unfailing. This is the answer to whatever confronts you today. Through the Love of God within you, you can resolve all seeming difficulties without effort and in sure confidence. Tell yourself this often today. It is a declaration of release from the belief in idols. It is your acknowledgment of the truth about yourself.
For ten minutes, twice today, morning and evening, let the idea for today sink deep into your consciousness. Repeat it, think about it, let related thoughts come to help you recognize its truth, and allow peace to flow over you like a blanket of protection and surety. Let no idle and foolish thoughts enter to disturb the holy mind of the Son of God.
Such is the Kingdom of Heaven. Such is the resting place where your Father has placed you forever.
"And the servant of the Lord must . . . be gentle unto all men."
(2 Tim. 2:24)A beautiful legend says that one day the angel of the flowers - the angel whose charge it is to care for the adorning of the flowers - lay and slept beneath the shade of a rose bush. Awaking from his sleep refreshed, he whispered to the rose -
"O fondest object of my care,
Still fairest found where all are fair,
For the sweet shade thou gavest me
Ask what thou wilt, 'tis granted thee.The rose requested that another gift might be given to it. The angel thought in silence what grace there was in all his gifts and adornments that the rose had not already. Then he threw a veil of moss over the queen of the flowers. And a moss-rose hung its head before him, most beautiful of all roses. If any Christian, even the Christliest, would pray for a new charm, an added grace of character, it may well be for gentleness. This is the crown of all loveliness, the Christliest of all Christly qualities.
All human hearts hunger for tenderness. We are made for love - not only to love, but to be loved. Harshness pains us. Ungentleness touches our sensitive spirits as frost touches the flowers. It stunts the growth of all lovely things. Gentleness is like a genial summer to our life. Beneath its warm, nourishing influence beautiful things in us grow.
There are many people who have special need for tenderness. We cannot know what secret burdens many of those about us are carrying, what hidden griefs burn like fires in the hearts of those with whom we mingle in our common life. Not all grief wears the outward garb of mourning; sunny faces ofttimes veil heavy hearts. Many people who make no audible appeal for sympathy yet crave tenderness - they certainly need it, though they ask it not - as they bow beneath their burden. There is no weakness in such a yearning. We remember how our Master himself longed for expressions of love when He was passing through His deepest experiences of suffering, and how bitterly He was disappointed when His friends failed Him.
We can never do amiss in showing gentleness. There is no day when it will be untimely; there is no place where it will not find welcome. It will harm no one, and it may save someone from despair.
J. R. Miller"Thy gentleness hath made me great" (Psalm 18:35).
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Never Alone Never Again
(neveralone_neveragain)
Footprints
One night a man had a dream. He dreamed he was walking along
the beach with the LORD. Across the sky flashed scenes from his
life. For each scene, he noticed two sets of footprints in the
sand; one belonged to him, and the other to the LORD.
When the last scene of his life flashed before him, he looked back at the footprints in the sand. He noticed that many times along the path of his life there was only one set of footprints. He also noticed that it happened at the very lowest and saddest times in his life.
This really bothered him and he questioned the LORD about it. "LORD, you said that once I decided to follow you, you'd walk with me all the way. But I have noticed that during the most troublesome times in my life, there is only one set of footprints. I don't understand why when I needed you most you would leave me.
The LORD replied, "My
precious, precious child, I love you and I would never leave
you. During your times of trial and suffering, when you see only
one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you."
~Mary Stevenson Parker~
Butt Prints In The Sand
One night I had a wondrous
dream,
One set of footprints there was seen,
The footprints of my precious Lord,
But mine were not along the shore.
But then some stranger prints
appeared. . .
And I asked the Lord, "What have we here?
Those prints are large and round and neat,
But Lord, they are too big for feet."
"My child," He said
in somber tones,
"For miles I carried you alone.
I challenged you to walk in faith,
But you refused and made me wait."
"You disobeyed, you would
not grow,
The walk of faith you would not know. . .
So I got tired, I got fed up,
And there I dropped you on your butt."
"Because in life there
comes a time
When one must fight, and one must climb,
When one must rise and take a stand,
Or leave their butt prints in the sand."
~Author Unknown~
Jimmy K.
---
"When the solution is simple, God is answering."
~Albert Einstein~
Peace.
Bill
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Trust
and Believe
Canookie
Girl
