Download to Color: MandalaoftheWeek.com

Lesson 261: ”God is my refuge and security.”

Reframe: I am supported, safe, and held in love and clarity.

Suggested Practice: 

From now on: 
Once in the morning and once in the evening for however many minutes feels sufficient. Then every hour remember/recite the idea for the day. 

Prayer For today: 
(feel free to swap out the wording to whatever resonates with you best)

“Let me not seek for idols. ²I would come, my Father, home to You today. ³I choose to be as You created me, and find the Son whom You created as my Self.” (ACIM, W-261.2:1-3)

OR… “I choose to be the Light that I am.”

For Lessons 261-270: What is the body? is the theme. Read the whole article here.
”The body is a fence the Son of God imagines he has built, to separate parts of his Self from other parts.”… The body is a dream. ²Like other dreams it sometimes seems to picture happiness, but can quite suddenly revert to fear, where every dream is born. ³For only love creates in truth, and truth can never fear. ⁴Made to be fearful, must the body serve the purpose given it. ⁵But we can change the purpose that the body will obey by changing what we think that it is for… The body is the means by which God’s Son returns to sanity …³The Son of God extends his hand to reach his brother, and to help him walk along the road with him. ⁴Now is the body holy. ⁵Now it serves to heal the mind…³Your safety lies in truth, and not in lies. ⁴Love is your safety. ⁵Fear does not exist. ⁶Identify with love, and you are safe.⁷Identify with love, and you are home. ⁸Identify with love, and find your Self.

From the PART II Introduction: Read the whole introduction here.

“Words will mean little now. ²We use them but as guides on which we do not now depend. ³For now we seek direct experience of truth alone. ⁴The lessons that remain are merely introductions to the times in which we leave the world of pain, and go to enter peace. ⁵Now we begin to reach the goal this course has set, and find the end toward which our practicing was always geared.” (ACIM, W-pII.in.1:1-5)

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View timelapse of the coloring of today’s mandala
on My YouTube Channel:

https://youtu.be/RJvhgKpOtBE?is=7yKl-XdKmazrVCyw

Message

Today was and is a process for me. I fully enjoyed coloring today’s section of the Mandala of the Week—it came easily. Connecting with the message did not, and does not.

Throughout the day I was either in ego mind or observer mind. What I noticed about ego mind for the first time is that when I come out of it and into observer mind, I feel as if I’ve been in some form of blackout, clueless as to what I had been doing all that time. I blindly follow the whims of the ego mind. To be honest, I’m not even sure what causes the shift out of ego into observer. I equate it to when I first start waking up in the morning after a night of sleep.

By observer mind, I mean being in a space where I’m at a crossroads between following ego mind or following Divine mind. It feels neutral and present—a point where I can assess whether I want to go back into ego mind or go with the Divine. This is not something the Course teaches. It’s something I’ve come up with to help me understand that I have a choice. For the Course, it’s more black and white: we’re either in ego mind or Divine mind. For me, that’s too big of a leap.

And that’s where I am with today’s Lesson. Reading about it and trying to do the practice, I’ve felt strong resistance with fearful thoughts like “Ooo, do you really want to make that leap?” or “How can you trust something or someone you can’t even see to be your refuge or your safety?” The energy of those thoughts was so strong that I conceded and spent most of my afternoon surfing the web to avoid the Lesson.

I’m not sure what got me writing today. It’s probably the idea of wanting to honor posting one Lesson a day that motivated me. Taking the time right now to understand what the resistance is about, it dawns on me how hurt I was by trusting everything I was taught about the God of my strict religious upbringing. That He was someone to be feared and yet revered. Someone who could save us and yet could also condemn us to hell if we didn’t follow the rules. And now today the Course is inviting me to think of God as my refuge and security. I’m not sure I’m going to get there today.

Intellectually, I get what the Lesson is teaching. Thinking of God as the infinite principle of pure Love, as the Course teaches, helps ease some of the resistance. Knowing how much I’ve grown through all of these Lessons so far, I’m trusting that as I continue, the resistance will eventually resolve.

The biggest takeaway for me today, and it was a surprise, was gaining awareness of the blackout effect of letting the ego mind rule my life. Now that I’ve noticed how ego mind operates like a blackout—at least for me—I really don’t like how it feels like I’ve lost control of myself. It certainly doesn’t feel anything like peace, love, and joy. With this new awareness, I can see the advantage of choosing Divine mind.

“Your inner voice, your instinct, knows everything.”
— “The Course in Miracles Experiment” by Pam Grout

Blessings & Peace,

Maureen,
The Mandala Lady

transforming soul whispers into mandalas & channeled messages
for clarity, peace, and joy

 About the 2026 Mandalas of the Day — ▶️ A Note About A Course in Miracles