One of the most remarkable promises in A Course in Miracles is this: the past can be healed. Not by changing what happened, but by changing how we see it. The Holy Spirit cannot undo events, but He can undo the interpretation we’ve assigned to them. And when our perception changes, the emotional weight of the past is lifted. The guilt, shame, resentment, and sorrow that once defined us begin to dissolve.
In truth, the past is not gone—it is active in our minds. Every time we relive a mistake, cling to a grievance, or define ourselves by a painful memory, we are dragging the past into the present and projecting it onto the future. This keeps us trapped in time. But when we invite the Holy Spirit to reinterpret our past, we open the door to timelessness. To healing. To peace.
The Course says:
“The Holy Spirit can use all that you give to Him for your salvation. But He cannot use what you withhold, for He cannot take it from you without your willingness.”
This means that even our most painful memories can be transformed—if we are willing to offer them. It means that no experience is wasted. The Holy Spirit can use everything for good. Every heartbreak, every failure, every wound—when placed in His hands—becomes a stepping stone back to love.
We are not victims of our past. We are victims of our interpretations of the past.
This realization was a turning point for me. Like many people, I carried moments in my life that felt too heavy to revisit. Times I had disappointed others. Times I had failed to live up to my own values. Times when loss left me gasping for meaning. These moments became like chapters in a book I didn’t want to reread—but couldn’t stop quoting.
Then I encountered this line in the Course:
“The past is gone. It can touch me not.”
At first, I resisted that idea. Of course the past can touch me, I thought. It shaped who I am. It made me what I am today. But slowly, I began to see what the Course was really saying: the past itself has no power unless I choose to bring it forward. Unless I choose to believe the story the ego wrote about it.
The ego writes stories of betrayal, failure, punishment, and blame. It wants the past to prove that we are unworthy of love or that others are unworthy of forgiveness. The Holy Spirit, by contrast, sees only opportunities for healing. He rewrites the past not by denying what occurred, but by stripping away the guilt we attached to it.
He sees not sin, but mistakes. Not punishment, but correction. Not shame, but learning.
And so the question becomes: Whose interpretation will I believe?
At a time when I was wrestling with this very question, a dear mentor of mine, Mary Morrissey, offered a phrase that struck me like lightning through fog:
“Do the best you can, with what you have, from where you are.”
That simple wisdom triggered something in me. It softened the grip of self-judgment and invited me to begin again—not from perfection, but from presence. That phrase sparked my return to spiritual writing, after a long period of silence and self-doubt. It reminded me that I didn’t have to wait to be perfect to offer something meaningful. I only had to be willing.
And willingness, as the Course reminds us again and again, is the birthplace of miracles.
When you remember a painful moment from your past, notice how you frame it. Do you blame yourself? Someone else? Do you feel stuck there, like it’s still happening? If so, it’s because the ego has claimed authorship of that memory. And the ego always writes in permanent ink.
But the Holy Spirit has a different pen. One that writes in light.
To invite Him in, you don’t need to analyze the event or understand every detail. You simply need to say, “I don’t want to carry this pain anymore. Please help me see it differently.”
That simple prayer is an act of surrender. A miracle in motion.
One of the most beautiful truths in the Course is that time itself can be reinterpreted. The Holy Spirit doesn’t just wait for the present moment—He travels back into the past and brings light to the darkest corners of our memory. Not to change what happened, but to free us from the meaning we assigned to it.
You may have believed that a loved one’s death was your fault. That a failed relationship defined your worth. That a missed opportunity ruined your life. These are stories the ego clings to—because guilt is its food. But when you offer those stories to Spirit, something shifts. You begin to see that the loss taught you compassion. That the failure humbled you. That the delay brought you where you needed to be.
You begin to see purpose where there was only pain.
This is not spiritual bypassing. It is spiritual maturity. It is the choice to release the heavy cloak of interpretation and receive the peace of reinterpretation.
Forgiveness is the key. Not just forgiveness of others, but of yourself. You were doing the best you could with what you knew at the time. And so was everyone else. The Course reminds us:
“Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred.”
On the level of form, things happened. But on the level of truth—the level of Spirit—nothing real was lost. Only illusions shifted and danced. The eternal cannot be harmed. The soul remains untouched. What matters now is what you are willing to believe.
Letting the Holy Spirit rewrite your past is not about pretending nothing happened. It’s about finally seeing that nothing happened to you that can touch what you truly are. Your essence remains. Your light endures. And your past, once healed, becomes the fertile ground from which compassion blooms.
Let Him be your editor. Let Him take the pen from your ego. Let Him show you the version of your life where every hurt is transformed into a stepping stone toward grace.
Because once you see your past with Spirit, the future no longer frightens you.
And the present becomes a place of freedom—not fear.
