True Love

photo credit: Heather Peters

ACIM Workbook Lesson #50: “I am sustained by the Love of God.”

The images our ego projects and calls love are but a shadow of the Love which is our focus today. Most of us have believed the false image of love which this life has taught us. The songs we sing, the movies we watch, the things we expect from love, these do not begin to tell us what it means to be sustained by Love. To quote today’s lesson: “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.” ACIM

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

“A misplaced word changes the sense and misstates the Science of the Scriptures, as, for instance, to name Love as merely an attribute of God; but we can by special and proper capitalization speak of the love of Love, meaning by that what the beloved disciple meant in one of his epistles, when he said, ‘God is love.’” Science & Health Page 319:27-1

February 19, 2015 - The Greatest Thing ...

photo by Steve Shogren

ACIM Workbook Lesson #50:

“I am sustained by the Love of God.”

Everywhere I turn, I seem to be pointed back to basics. The Love that is God is a cornerstone of most spiritual study, and I find it to be particularly palatable reading right now. I have reread Marianne Williamson’s “A Return to Love”. I’m reading Henry Drummond’s “The Greatest Thing in the World”, which examines well-known words from First Corinthians which begin, “Though I speak with the tongues of men and of angels, and have not Love, I am become as sounding brass or a tinkling cymbal.” In this book, he reminds me how very important it is to be kind. Living a solitary lifestyle seems well-suited to me. Perhaps it began when I was an only child of older parents. It certainly continued during three short marriages which only lasted as long as they did because the husbands were away from home working most of the time. Whatever the case, I am happy to have these reminders of the pure essence of Love, and I look forward to sowing Its seeds along with the herbs and flowers of spring!

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

"Psalm XXIII 

[DIVINE LOVE] is my shepherd; I shall not want. [LOVE] maketh me to lie down in green pastures: [LOVE] leadeth me beside the still waters. [LOVE] restoreth my soul [spiritual sense]: [LOVE] leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for [LOVE] is with me; [LOVE'S] rod and [LOVE'S] staff they comfort me. [LOVE] prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: [LOVE] anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house [the consciousness] of [LOVE] for ever.

Science & Health" Page 578: 3-18

February 19, 2012 - Sustained by Love

ACIM workbook lesson #50:

“I am sustained by the Love of God.”

Heather Sustained
photo by Aaron Springston

[Marsha's thoughts]

When an animal looks at us lovingly, do we ever wonder if we need to comb our hair or if we have spinach in between our teeth? This loving glance is pure in many ways which our human love seems to lack. I look to my dog(s) to show me the way to express and to feel the Love that is God. In order to recognize that "I am sustained by the Love of God", I must give up all previous notions of what love is. I once heard a mother say of her child that she had to love him, but she didn't have to like him. I think we often have this idea about God's Love, too. Yes, we'll tell ourselves, God loves me -- but there's a nagging suspicion that it's only because He has to. But this idea never existed in divine Love. Can we even begin to imagine a Love that just is? I certainly want to. I want to know this Love of God and allow it to sustain me constantly, not just when I don't know what to do and reach out in desperation. Today I'm feeling out of sorts for no particular reason. So I think I'll take a walking meditation, stilling my mind and feeling nothing but the air around me. And pretty soon I know there will be a hint of Love coloring my mood. A taste is all it takes for me to want to throw off the shackles of ennui and swim in a sea of all-sustaining Love.

Mary Baker Eddy quote:

In the following Psalm one word shows, though faintly, the light which Christian Science throws on the Scriptures by substituting for the corporeal sense, the incorporeal or spiritual sense of Deity:-- Psalm XXIII

[DIVINE LOVE] is my shepherd; I shall not want. [LOVE] maketh me to lie down in green pastures: [LOVE] leadeth me beside the still waters. [LOVE] restoreth my soul [spiritual sense]: [LOVE] leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for His name's sake.Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for [LOVE] is with me; [LOVE'S] rod and [LOVE'S] staff they comfort me. [LOVE] prepareth a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: [LOVE] anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over. Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life; and I will dwell in the house [the consciousness] of [LOVE] for ever.

Science & Health Page 577:31-18