Good afternoon, dear Ones,
A week ago, I touched upon the concepts of “acceptance” and “resignation.” Yet they were not central to the theme of our communion. Grace was. Grace is, still.
This week, somehow, I came to reflect upon these two concepts in the light of a friend’s story. I knew this friend had been suffering from a malfunctioning arm yet didn’t have many details about the extent of her injury. And didn’t know the outcome after a long process of physical therapy as she had not mentioned her arm in our previous conversations.
Mystically, before I reconnected with these two concepts, I came across the passage below from the Arcturian Group. I read it two days ago, Monday. What I am quoting here caught my inner eye, so to speak, yet it was only the beginning of a deeper reflection that took me where I am today, after I put the pieces in the context of my friend’s story.
“Many and varied experiences constitute everyone’s journey to realization. Even the smallest life experiences expand awareness and become one’s state of consciousness. Everyone is at their own unique place along the journey toward realization so the negative experiences that you may lovingly want to remove from another may very well be the very experiences the person needs and chose pre-birth for spiritual growth.
This doesn’t means ignoring suffering while shouting, “It’s just illusion.” Rather it means that you do what you are intuitively guided to do while keeping in mind that something more than what outer appearances would indicate is taking place. Always allow your intuition to guide you in these matters because, for some, the experience of total failure may be an integral part of their soul plan. Always honor the free will of others even when you can easily see a better way.”
This passage is very profound and constitutes an invitation to reflect on ‘every day suffering’ at a level we don’t often apprehend, except in the case of sudden injuries or life-threatening incidents.
Perhaps this passage is an answer to those who ask God, “why is this happening to me?”
Or, put it another way, “what did I do to deserve that?”
These are fair questions, I believe; questions we can rarely understand–not to mention answer–within the context of a single life. There ought to be more ‘somewhere’ for us to be able to put together the pieces of the puzzle of our life.
Here is my friend’s story. Let’s call her Christina.
Christina is in her early seventies. Three years ago, she fell on her shoulder during an outing. She thought she only bruised a ligament and could recover fairly quickly yet, as it turned out, she needed a full shoulder replacement. A skilled surgeon took care of her in the town where she lived. Unbeknownst to him, apparently, he severed a vital nerve while replacing Christina’s shoulder. She rapidly realized that her recovery was not going as planned and that she couldn’t use her arm. She consulted many specialists and eventually underwent another delicate procedure in the summer of 2019 with a nerve grafting expert. There were high hopes for recovery after such a complex surgery yet, almost two years down the road, there is still no progress and the damage appears to be permanent.
Christina’s story hit home last Saturday when another person told us about her situation. She even said that Christina understood her disability was “part of her path.”
Perhaps it feels like acceptance, perhaps it doesn’t, knowing I haven’t talked to my friend lately and may not in the next few days.
What came back to me today were the words I wrote last week about acceptance.
“Acceptance, on the other hand, means that we are proactive, willing and opening up to possibilities. Opening up to what might lie beyond our grasp in a situation or in an encounter with a person.”
It doesn’t seem that my friend’s story fits my understanding of “acceptance,” does it?
Yet who knows what these “possibilities” might be? And who knows what may ‘truly’ lie “beyond our grasp”?
The thought that came to mind, connecting with last week’s theme, is Grace.
What is possible, in Christina’s and many others’ situation, is the crystallization of a miracle–a miracle of Grace.
Let’s create the space ONE MORE TIME for Grace to shower us this Thursday!
Link to Facebook invitation:
Nurturing the Gift of Seeking 