Lesson 85

Today’s review will cover these ideas:

(69) My grievances hide the light of the world in me.

My grievances show me what is not there, and hide from me what I would see. Recognizing this, what do I want my grievances for? They keep me in darkness and hide the light. Grievances and light cannot go together, but light and vision must be joined for me to see. To see, I must lay grievances aside. I want to see, and this will be the means by which I will succeed.

Specific applications for this idea might be made in these forms:

Let me not use this as a block to sight. The light of the world will shine all this away. 
I have no need for this. I want to see.

(70) My salvation comes from me.

Today I will recognize where my salvation is. It is in me because its Source is there. It has not left its Source, and so it cannot have left my mind. I will not look for it outside myself. It is not found outside and then brought in. But from within me it will reach beyond, and everything I see will but reflect the light that shines in me and in itself.

These forms of the idea are suitable for more specific applications:

Let this not tempt me to look away from me for my salvation.
I will not let this interfere with my awareness of the Source of my salvation. 
This has no power to remove salvation from me.

Initial Insight: There are two related thoughts here. Grievances are keeping me in hell and nothing outside me is going to save me. There is no grievance that I am willing to hold onto, not against myself or anyone else or even against a situation. And it has been a while now since I thought that something outside me needed to change in order for me to be happy.

Daily Application: As always, I watch my thoughts and my feelings like a hawk. I am immediately aware of meaningless ideas in my mind and I just as immediately release them to the Holy Spirit. I am especially vigilant when it comes to ideas about my children. They are precious children of God and I love them completely, but if the idea that they owe me something or that my happiness depends on what they say or do comes into my mind, I dismiss it. If the thought lingers, I know that means I am still attracted to it and I release it to the Holy Spirit and ask for healing. This is forgiveness. I forgive the belief any of that is true. This is the Atonement. I accept the Atonement for those beliefs. This is salvation. Why do I especially watch thoughts about my children? If there is a lingering ego belief in my mind, this is where I will find it.

Insights from Holy Spirit: Here was a message I got when I was still trying to let grievances go, when it felt hard.
Holy Spirit: There is a need to expand your thinking about grievances because grievances are what block the light in your mind. You work with the specific grievances you see in your life and you begin to understand they are all the same, simply dressed up to look different. That each one was different and special was an ego strategy to keep you busy so you would be unaware of what the grievances are hiding. You know that you are starting to see the sameness. That is why you found Lesson 79 and 80 so useful; it helped you to recognize more fully the sameness of all problems.

Gratitude: It was exciting when this began to change and I saw the shift occurring in my work with grievances. I had been handing over thought errors for a long time and had been fully convinced of the value in doing so. But when I first started, I was looking at each thought as if it were unrelated to the others. It felt like a job for hundreds of lifetimes. Thank you for helping me to see this differently. Now, I brush off grievances like they are gnats and as unwanted.