Dear Mr. Carpenter,

I give thanks for your guidance.

I began study ACIM during the early eighties. Prior to discovery of ACIM I was into spiritual searching for some time. Since I can remember, I always wanted to understand myself. I am a transsexual. I was born with a female body but had always felt I should be a male since the earliest childhood. I had surgeries done twenty some years ago and have lived successfully as a male since. The surgeries I had did not completely change my physical body due to lack of funds and surgical technique at the time.

My life has been a constant struggle. Luck seems to elude me. It seems that I am always alone by myself. I am a single child. I did not have a father while growing up and I grew up with an emotionally abusive mother. I have no relationship with any relatives. I supported myself since I was sixteen. I have always been plagued with deep devastating depressions. My life experience and outlook has taught me that life is full of suffering, and hardship, joy and happiness are rare. There were times I wanted to kill myself to end the suffering. I did not commit suicide because of my interest in spiritual teachings and the hope that maybe I can find happiness and joy in this life. From all the spiritual readings I learned told me it is not possible to escape suffering from suicide. When I learned of this I was very disappointed. So, begrudgingly, I realized that the only way out of my suffering is through self-realization.

I am determined to success in this endeavor. I need help now. ACIM resonated to me. I wanted to not only study it myself but felt I wanted to help others especially Chinese people to know it too. One of my desires for the past twenty years has been wanting to be with Waterlike (Chiao lin) to learn more about ACIM and help other Chinese who would be interested in ACIM.

However, I have not been able to manifest anything I wanted in my life. I feel very despondent over this. None of my dreams and desires has come true. Life and hope seems to slip away from me…I wanted to establish a good career and business. I am talented in my work. However, due to bad economy and unfortunate circumstances involving a couple of bad contractors with projects I was responsible for, I suffered greatly financially and in my career. My career just seemed went down hill from there. I watch other architects with less than my talent receiving good commissions and recognition where mine just sit there. My marriage of 23 years broke up. My mother's hatred toward my ex-wife certainly did not help toward maintaining my marriage. Towards the end of my marriage I got involved with a woman who was an emotionally abused woman and needed lots of help and support. Now I see nothing but hardship for the future in our relationship because of our own unresolved baggage.

I had an unsuccessful surgery for a sever sleep apnea condition and should have another one. During the last one and half year I have been severely depressed and tired. I am on anti-depressant medicine and I feel physically out of energy. I lost my house during the divorce and am not able to afford to buy another house. I have been living on my savings and it is running out and I am scared. I would like to complete my sex change surgery but that is not realistic now either. I am almost 53 years old now. I haven't established a career and I am starting all over again. It looks like I lost the best opportunities in my life. I am physically, financially, emotionally, mentally all wore out.

I pray daily to Jesus, Holy Spirit and God. I surrender myself to God everyday. I tell myself I must have faith. I beg God to help me, to hear me, to talk to me, everyday. I pray that God to help me to be loving and forgiving. Why haven't I see any change for the better? I ask God everyday to tell me what does He want me to do? I am willing to do anything for you. Help me to hear God.

I don't know what to do. I don't know if my dreams or desires were God's will for me? It seems I need to have a stable career and income to be able to do the work with Waterlike. Which I don't have. I was told by an astrologer that I should teach. But I don't see any opportunity like that happening. I do enjoying teaching. I was also told by the astrologer that if I move to another time zone I should have better income. But I don't know if this is God's will for me. I enjoy my work, I am very creative in my work, but which I believe is not very marketable in my area, and I don't know how to market my work. I do organic architecture. I want to know what God wants me to do.

I would like to know about my relationship with this woman. I do love her. But it looks like to me she is not ready or willing to have a relationship the way I envisioned. I am now working on myself to just love her unconditionally and not expecting anything from her in return. This has been very difficult to do, but I am working hard on this. I'd like to know what kind of Karma I have with this woman.

Why am I not able to manifest any of my dreams? I believe I have been working very hard in spiritual work. I am a more forgiving and loving man than I ever was. Yet, I am still plagued with depressions, hopelessness and despair. Even with this, I am clear that reaching God and to be a self-realized man is my main goal in life. My faith is stronger than before. But I do need help.

Mr. Carpenter, can you talk to God for me? I need help.

George

Dear George,
I have received your letter and feel the pain and torment which has defined your life in such a way they often seem insurmountable. I want to assure you, however, that not only is it possible to change your life, you have already begun that process by reaching out for help. Something within you that is not yet quite definable knows there is a peaceful, joyful way to experience your life, or you would merely accept things the way they are and not search for something else. Trust this feeling for it will help to bring about the changes even more quickly.

While I do understand your pain, for all who share this world have it in one form or another, there is something else I see in you that you are unaware of and will initially find difficult to accept. I see a lovely flower blooming in pure joyful radiance, anxious to share the beauty and joy it feels with everyone. This perfect creation was born in love and innocence as an integral part of all Creation, and will forever remain so.
I tell you of this vision as a reminder, for it, being the truth, is already in your mind but buried behind many layers of guilty misperceptions you have dreamed about yourself.

You have been told things similar to this for some time, but have previously thought of this image of beauty as a fantasy to reach for, something to be attained which your ego belief insisted was beyond you. It is time now for you to understand you cannot attain what is already true about you. Your path is not one of learning how to change yourself, but how to see past your misperceptions to the truth that has never changed. That is the purpose of learning the forgiveness process as taught by A Course in Miracles.

Knowing that what we now believe is not the truth is the first step in changing our beliefs. The second step is feeling empowered to actually change our mind, to know that it is only our own decision that is necessary. We obviously cannot do this while holding others responsible for what has happened in our lives. This is most difficult to overcome in the ego belief system for being a victim of others beliefs and choices is central to all it other beliefs.

Another part of feeling empowered to change our mind, while knowing we need not be victim to others choices, is to realize it is our beliefs that make up our experiences. Those beliefs not only control the meaning of what happens, which determines our perception of the outcome, they literally create the circumstances of our experience as well. You were brought up in an environment which gave little value to being a female child. This suited your beliefs of low self-esteem from prior lifetimes and made it easy for you to accept this evaluation. Your feeling that you should be a male was the first awakenings that it was possible to choose to be something of value. Being rejected by your mother further influenced your leanings. Being "like" her was far from satisfying. It actually had nothing to do with sexual inclinations, which is why you have had difficulties in that area in your relationships.
All of your struggles from early childhood to now have come as a result of what I would characterize as one form or another of self denial; the choices always resulting in feeling punished or abused in some fashion. Please do not believe that "luck" or chance had anything to do with it. That only serves to further rob you of the power of your own choices.
As I said to you before, I have reminded you of an image of yourself that is true. This is also what A Course in Miracles does and that is why it resonates with you, as the way to let what the truth is return to your awareness. That process is the one of forgiveness. I must say to you, however, for it to be effective you must be willing to commit to it, to do it consistently with every occasion in which guilt and fear arise. The effectiveness of the power of forgiveness is measured by how much it releases you from fear and guilt and restores peace and joy to your experience. And the extent to which we are ready and willing to receive peace, love and joy is the extent to which we are willing to give it.
Forgiveness suspends self imposed judgment. It is the acknowledgment that we are ready to accept our self, and we demonstrate this thru our acceptance of others; not in spite of what they / we have done, but because we can see it was simply a mistake we both have made about what was really true. This in the beginning is hard to value as what will change our lives because we do not recognize it is only our beliefs that make our lives what they are. That is why it is so essential that we experience the changes that occur when we change what we value. We must see how the suffering and hardships of fear and guilt begin to disappear from our experience as we release others from the guilt of our judgments. We must experience first hand how others do not judge us as we stop judging them. This is the message of A Course in Miracles. The Workbook section is the detailed, "how to" change your belief on a daily, step-by-step basis. It will accomplish exactly what you want it to if you take it literally and do as it suggests

The one for you to begin the forgiveness process with is your mother. You must begin to realize that her "abuse" of you in truth had nothing to do with you. She too was simply buried in her own guilt and self-denial and was reacting to her beliefs of worthlessness. She, as we all do when our fear is great, projected her sense of worthlessness on to you, as her mother had done to her. You now have a wonderful opportunity to break this cycle by denying the truth of worthlessness for everyone. What your mother was searching for is the same thing you are searching for - to know that you are loved. What holds you both back is the perception of being unlovable, the appearances of our behaviors in the world, which always come as a result of believing there is something wrong with us. Joining with her in knowing you shared a common goal will make the attainment of that goal a certainty for both of you. She may or may not accept it in the time you do, but that is not important. It will be there when she is ready to accept it. What is important is your learning that the appearance in the world of the manifestations of our beliefs does not change or influence what is actually true. But seeing past these appearances - acknowledging you no longer choose to believe they are true - will release you from their effects, bringing peace, love and joy to your life.
I admire and respect your desire to become a teacher of God. There is no reason for you not to do this right now. Your desire to do so is the only requirement. Your willingness to listen to the Voice for God within you is the only source you need to rely on to do all that needs to be done. The most effective teachers are those who have a strong desire to learn and have the willingness to trust their inner Voice to lead them. I can see that you can do this and encourage you to be open to try.
There is nothing in your life experience now that will not change as you begin to see past your guilt and fear, whether it is depression, sleep disorder, trouble earning money or having better relationships. All of these things are symptoms of your fearful beliefs and will change as you change the way you see yourself. Do not be tempted to think that your "luck" will be the same as it has been. Expect that things will change, because they will. Practice teaching others they deserve to be happy and have abundance in their lives. This will help you to realize this is also true for you.
The last thing I would like to clarify for you is why, when you seem to be "working so hard" to achieve your spiritual goals, you do not seem able to "manifest your dreams." To understand this you must remember that it is your beliefs which are the mirror for your experience. Until those beliefs change it doesn't matter what you do or how hard you "work." When your thoughts are based on guilt and fear your experiences will unfold to serve the purposes of guilt and fear. It is these beliefs you must surrender to the truth God offers you. Do not worry about the effects of karma. It has no power of its own. The only power it could have over you is what belief you invest in it. It has only seemed to have great effect in your culture because it is a belief greatly empowered because there are so many who share it and so it is used as an explanation to further justify guilt. Do not subscribe to any belief that seems to allow anything to happen to you against your will.
God's Will for you is perfect happiness, which you will come to know as what is true about you becomes more evident. God wants you to do whatever in your perception will make this easier to achieve. He can use anything you bring to Him to teach you that you are perfectly loved. You should grow accustomed to making choices based upon whether or not they will make you happy. A happy learner learns much more effectively than one who is not happy. Begin now to find and nurture the Presence of God within you. Allow the Course to teach you how to find the beautiful flower you have hidden in your garden of thorns. Never doubt God's faith in you who is His perfect creation. You are perfectly lovable and perfectly loved.
Blessings, Tom Carpenter

转自： 奇迹课程中文部－Ask Tom专栏 2006/4/7