sickness is but a "little" death

In early 1978 Jesus dictated messages of love for

the dying, the sick, the sad, the lonely, the grieving, those racked with pain,
each frightened voice that calls to God in whispered agony.  

The messages of love are a healing focus of The Song of Prayer. Because God's Son can yet be more merciful on himself, these messages convey the blessing of true healing to the minds of those who are ill or near death.

The Gifts of God “Poem”

How five of the messages of love were published as a poem entitled The Gifts of God is described in the Absence from Felicity biography of Helen, in Chapters 14 and 15.

• These last messages of love are published as
  “a long blank verse poem in five sections printed in prose form”.
  
• Section five of the long blank verse poem is not as scribed.
  

The five messages of love are at the end of the book of poems, on pages 115-128. The book is also entitled The Gifts of God. These messages help you be kind to yourself. Because they employ Course concepts, they can help miracles students e. g.

• someone who read some of the Text or is reading the Workbook or who read the Manual or someone generally familiar with Course concepts and not offended by less psychoanalytic detail and
  
• someone familiar with the ladder of prayer and The Song of Prayer
  

The same set of messages are as germane to death as they are to sickness because, as explained in the The Picture of Crucifixion (Text Chapter 27 section I paragraph 4)

Sickness is but a “little” death;
a form of vengeance not yet total.

Each message of love is born of the content of what salvation is. Illusions are let go, never supported. The poem sections differ in form according to where each one lies along the ladder of prayer and align with the ladder in this way

               upper rungs Our Gift to God and The Father's Love

        rising The Ending of the Dream

ladder search, bottom rung  The Dream of Fear, The Two Gifts

The messages of love show us how living the song of prayer strengthens our faith and holds us up as we “ascend the shining stairway to the lawns of Heaven and the gate of peace”.  

GAD happens

For Those Who Call to God in Sorrow

To the dying, the sick, the sad, the lonely, the grieving, those racked with pain, each frightened voice that calls to God in whispered agony.  

Introduction

This is dedicated to the Love which inspires us. The comments are my opinion and not endorsed by any other person, foundation, company or corporation. On 2/8/78 Helen Schucman, Ph.D. began to scribe five messages of love.

Anxiety Happens (it comes with each body) 

Dealing with fear is what the first two messages of love are about. Anxiety is a variety of fear, a subtle presence for everyone. GAD (generalized anxiety disorder) is widespread but not often diagnosed. In each moment we each are somewhere in the range from ease to pathology. As stress increases, anxiety can be more debilitating. 

Somewhere, A Quiet World  

The first of the messages of love offers this gift,
"A quiet world, with gentle ordering and kindly thought, alive with hope and radiant in joy, without the smallest bitterness of fear upon its loveliness."
Many years earlier Helen dreamed of a quiet world, as a "happy dream". The nightmares of today can yield to your happy dream. Like Barbra Streisand singing "Somewhere" your grasp of these messages awakens you to this quiet world, a welcome way-station on the prodigal son's homeward journey.