Dear Rev Myron,
I want to see that I am innocent and nothing happened. But when you say you accept the Atonement, what do you mean exactly by that and how does that happen? I always think this would take time for me to sit with it (and sometimes you have no time for that What is a quick way to do this is in my mind? Love, W
Dear W,
I don’t know how to explain accepting. I can point to it through describing my experience of it and maybe that will help. Last night my daughter invited me into her drama and I just jumped right into it. This morning I woke up realizing that I don’t want to be here and asked for healing again. The ego mind insists that this all very real and the consequences are real and I need to do something about it. At the very least, the ego says, I need to be worried and afraid.
I had to take it a step at a time. I looked at the situation and my feelings about it. I let myself feel the fear and anxiety and hopelessness. I remembered that this cannot be the truth. I am the Son of God and this is not reality. I am not trying to change my own mind, but just remember enough of the truth to lead me to the desire for the Atonement.
I said, “God here I am. My mind is filled with ego fantasies of fear and guilt, stories of vengeance and hopelessness. I have tried to work from within the stories to change things and it feels even worse. I know this is not right. I don’t know how to get out of it. The more I try, the deeper I fall into it instead of out of it. I surrender.
“ I know that Jesus has a plan to undo this thing I have done. I surrender to his plan. I open my heart and mind to the Atonement and ask that Love heal me. I accept that healing. The ego mind does not give up easily and it kept offering me its plans for fixing the situation and it kept telling me I had to do something, feel something, could not ignore this. But I want the Atonement. I want healing and peace.”
I returned my mind to the truth and remembered that I want to accept the Atonement, not ego’s plans which never work. I did this several times and still the ego wants to take the story back, but I feel more certain now what I want. From past experience I know that as soon as I want healing more than I want the story, my mind is healed of the belief in the story.
This is as close as I can come to explaining what it means to accept the Atonement. I ask, but it is not mine until I really mean it. I might never get to the accepting part except that I am so heavily supported by the Holy Spirit, by Jesus, and by our angels and guides and whatever other disembodied beings are there for that purpose. We are not alone in this and have lots of help all the time. I’ve learned to trust that help, and to trust that Jesus would not establish a plan that does not work.