Question: “…I contacted you almost 4 years ago when my husband of 20 years, and the kindest, most supportive and best friend I’ve ever had, died suddenly and unexpectedly in his sleep at the age of 43. I contacted you soon after and asked your thoughts about seeing a world famous medium and you said I should do whatever might help. I have received many messages of support from him since then in the form of readings from various mediums, a host of coincidences and even sightings in my daily life. These have been a great help in my embracing our eventually being reunited when I die. That said, I can’t apply the Course teachings to everything else and not this. If everything I experience here is what I’ve asked for that means all of my husband’s messages are coming from me and not him and that is crushing me. Literally. And now, the personal thought system is constantly telling me that if I continue with my Course studies, my husband will disappear from my memory because he was nothing but my own projection and that when I die I will not remember him and will never see him again and this, more than anything else, has interrupted and stalled my progress…Ken (Wapnick) said that the thoughts of love we have here are but shadows of what is beyond and you explained that Tim was a manifestation of the Love that I am. It’s all so confusing to me. Obviously I can’t go back, but I also do not want to give up the hope that I’ll see my husband again…” – SB
Liz’s Response: Only the Truth is eternal and unchanging. If you have something and lose it, it was an illusion. You seem to feel that either your husband was the source of your well-being or your relationship with him was the source of your well-being. If your well-being falls away when he is gone then it is not real, lasting well-being. It is an illusion of well-being.
But the good news is that you do have a Source of eternal, unchanging well-being within you. You won’t let go of your husband as long as you think he is the source of your well-being. You will let him go naturally when the Truth is true for you and you know that you can rest in Its eternal peace. There is no reason for you to feel guilty for your mistaking the source of your well-being. The Truth in you goes on whole and perfect, untouched by this. The path to true Peace, for everyone, is one of holding onto idols while growing your awareness of Truth. No one releases idols until they see that they do not work and they are aware of What does work. Your having an idol simply means that you are not yet aware enough of Truth to not have an idol. Growing that awareness is a process.
You also do not have to fear that you will lose idols that you are not ready to release. Nothing can be taken from you. What falls away does so because you are ready for it to do so. However, it is true that you will not continue on a path that you do not believe will bring you the unchanging peace that you seek. When you find yourself fearing that you may lose the memory of your husband as the source of your well-being remind yourself that this will fall away only when permanent Peace has come into your awareness. At that point you will not experience any loss. You will then remember your relationship with him, not as an idol that was the source of your well-being, but as a manifestation of your eternal well-being. There will no longer be any fear associated with this memory.
