“I’d just been given the gift of seeing my father’s real self”

I have been studying all the references and would like to share a couple of healings with you.

The first involves my father, who passed away a few months ago. I could go into great detail about how he kept his children (plus their spouses, various caregivers, medical personal, etc.) busy 24/7 catering to his incessant demands and nasty behavior, but I’ll spare you that laundry list of complaints. What happened the night before Dad passed on changed my view of him—and people in general, to be honest.

My sister-in-law and I decided to stay at the hospital with Dad because he’d been in a lot of distress before he dropped off to sleep. As we sat by his bedside, I prayed all night to know the truth of him as God’s perfect expression. Early in the morning, Dad suddenly woke up, gave me a beatific smile, and tenderly reached up and patted my cheek before closing his eyes again. It was so out of character for him that my sister-in-law and I just looked at each other in amazement.

But I understood I had just been given the gift of seeing my father’s real self. God was showing me the way He saw my dad—as buoyant and bright and sweet—and, yes, grateful for everything we had done for him. I realized that up until that point I’d been interacting defensively with Dad’s false self, that heavy-duty personality that was so fearful and controlling. Yet all this time his true self was struggling to get out, or rather, was waiting to be acknowledged. This experience persuaded me to dig deeper into my metaphysical work, to ask: What really needs to be healed here? And then to wait on God’s answer.

For example, my son called me recently to ask if I would do a treatment for his dog Tumbles, a dear little Lhasa Apso mix who has had several owners. Initially I thought: We can’t have him barking all day and chewing up the blinds—we have to deny that God’s dog would do anything like that!

But suddenly the angel thought came to me to question what was in the air. I’d never really considered “atmosphere” before—but I remembered something in Science and Health about forgotten associations still floating around in the mind. So I looked it up and pondered.

Given his past, it was easy to understand Tumbles’s feeling abandoned, but my son and his wife adore him and he them. Then I realized the dog had been just fine until my daughter-in-law began struggling with her courses at university. So another connection was soon made. When my daughter-in-law was a month old, her father abandoned her family. Although she doesn’t focus on this, her mother and older sister are still angry and sad about what happened almost three decades ago.

What was obviously needed here was not an analysis of things that had happened in the past, but the firm conviction that Tumbles and my daughter-in-law were never, ever outside God’s loving care. “In atmosphere of Love divine,/ We live, and move, and breathe” all the time, no matter what our past has been like, because we all dwell in the divine present. And it’s not enough to want this just for the family members you love, but you have to sweeten the atmosphere of life itself by acknowledging it for everyone.

By the way, Tumbles calmed down almost right away. When I saw him a couple of days ago, he gave me some heartfelt head-butts and hand-licks to say thanks, and fell asleep beside me. Oh, and my daughter-in-law is feeling more relaxed and happier too.