Prayer

“Prayer is a way of asking for something. When we said that prayer is the medium of miracles, we also said that the only meaningful prayer is for forgiveness, because those who have been forgiven have everything. Once forgiveness has been accepted, prayer in the usual sense becomes utterly without meaning. Essentially, a prayer for forgiveness is nothing more than a request that we may be able to recognize something we already have.” (ACIM, COA ed., T-3.VII.10:1-4)

What is the “usual” sense of prayer? It is supplication, and when we know, firmly, that we have everything, we are saved for a new kind of prayer: communion with God. This communion assumes that we have forgiven ourselves, for He doesn’t forgive, for He has never condemned.

We need desperately to forgive ourselves for real and imagined mistakes. We need desperately to love ourselves, for self-love allows the type of mental attitude that welcomes love of others as well. If we don’t love ourselves, we can’t very well take inner love and project it outward.

We already have forgiveness from the universe, all brothers and sisters everywhere. They wish us well, even though they may have a hard way of showing it in this world. And since God has not condemned, and therefore doesn’t need to offer forgiveness, we are home free there as well. God’s love wraps us up in a warm blanket, and we are safe. Safe and sound. Forgiven, including by ourselves.

Prayer as communion with God is immensely practical. Our guidance will give us the solutions to problems as soon as we have clearly articulated the problem. The solution is with the problem.

Know that forgiveness, when we have extended it to ourselves, is total. We don’t condemn another when we feel forgiven.