11.3 The Invitation to Healing
If sickness is separation, the decision to heal and to be healed is the first step toward recognizing what you truly want. Every attack is a step away from this, and every healing thought brings it closer. The Son of God has both Father and Son, because he is both Father and Son. To unite having and being is to unite your will with his, for he wills you himself. And you will yourself to him because, in your perfect understanding of him, you know there is but one will. Yet when you attack any part of God and his Kingdom your understanding is not perfect, and what you really want is therefore lost to you.
Healing thus becomes a lesson in understanding, and the more you practice it the better teacher and learner you become. If you have denied truth, what better witnesses to its reality could you have than those who have been healed by it? But be sure to count yourself among them, for in your willingness to join them is your healing accomplished. Every miracle that you accomplish speaks to you of the Fatherhood of God. Every healing thought that you accept, either from your brother or in your own mind, teaches you that you are God's Son. In every hurtful thought you hold, wherever you perceive it, lies the denial of God's Fatherhood and of your Sonship.
And denial is as total as love. You cannot deny part of yourself, because the rest will seem to be separate and therefore without meaning. And being without meaning to you, you will not understand it. To deny meaning is to fail to understand. You can heal only yourself, for only God's Son needs healing. You need it because you do not understand yourself, and therefore know not what you do. Having forgotten your will, you do not know what you really want.
Healing is a sign that you want to make whole. And this willingness opens your ears to the voice of the Holy Spirit, Whose message is wholeness. He will enable you to go far beyond the healing you would undertake, for beside your small willingness to make whole he will lay his own complete will and make yours whole. What can the Son of God not accomplish with the Fatherhood of God in him? And yet the invitation must come from you, for you have surely learned that whom you invite as your guest will abide with you.
The Holy Spirit cannot speak to an unwelcoming host, because he will not be heard. The eternal guest remains, but his voice grows faint in alien company. He needs your protection, only because your care is a sign that you want him. Think like him ever so slightly, and the little spark becomes a blazing light that fills your mind so that he becomes your only guest. Whenever you ask the ego to enter, you lessen his welcome. He will remain, but you have allied yourself against him. Whatever journey you choose to take, he will go with you, waiting. You can safely trust his patience, for he cannot leave a part of God. Yet you need far more than patience.
You will never rest until you know your function and fulfill it, for only in this can your will and your Father's be wholly joined. To have him is to be like him, and he has given himself to you. You who have God must be as God, for his function became yours with his gift. Invite this knowledge back into your mind, and let nothing that obscures it enter. The Guest Whom God sent you will teach you how to do this, if you but recognize the little spark and are willing to let it grow. Your willingness need not be perfect, because his is. If you will merely offer him a little place, he will lighten it so much that you will gladly let it be increased. And by this increase, you will begin to remember creation.
Would you be hostage to the ego or host to God? You will accept only whom you invite. You are free to determine who shall be your guest, and how long he shall remain with you. Yet this is not real freedom, for it still depends on how you see it. The Holy Spirit is there, although he cannot help you without your invitation. And the ego is nothing, whether you invite it in or not. Real freedom depends on welcoming reality, and of your guests only the Holy Spirit is real. Know, then, Who abides with you merely by recognizing what is there already, and do not be satisfied with imaginary comforters, for the Comforter of God is in you.
