LOSS, CHANGE, and BEGINNING AGAIN
​Scroll down to find these topics:

• Abortion – Considering Abortion for Yourself
• Abortion – Finding Healing and Peace Afterward
• Abortion – When Someone You Love Is Considering Abortion
• Acceptance – Letting Go of What Life Used to Be
• Beginning Again – Finding Courage After Disappointment or Failure
• Change – Facing the Fear of Change
• Home – Finding Your Way After the Loss of a Home
• Moving – Leaving a Familiar Community and Beginning Somewhere New

Abortion – Considering Abortion for Yourself
An unexpected or difficult pregnancy can bring you to a decision you never expected to face. You may feel frightened, uncertain, pressured, sad, clear, conflicted – or several of these at once. Other people may have strong opinions about what you should do, while you are the one who must live with the decision.

Give yourself room to think. Learn about the options available to you and obtain accurate medical information from a qualified healthcare professional. Consider your health, relationships, responsibilities, circumstances, values, spiritual beliefs, and hopes for your life. If possible, talk with someone capable of listening without trying to make the decision for you.

Notice whether fear or outside pressure is drowning out your own voice. A partner, parent, friend, religious leader, or other person may have an opinion, but coercion is not discernment. This decision belongs within the deepest integrity of your own life and circumstances.

Prayer can be a place for honesty rather than a demand for an immediate answer. Become quiet enough to listen beneath panic, expectations, and the voices around you. Ask what you know at the deepest level. Ask what choice you can live with honestly. Then allow clarity to unfold rather than forcing it.

The Divine Presence is not absent from difficult decisions. Spirit is present as wisdom, courage, compassion, and the capacity to choose consciously. Whatever decision you make, meet yourself with tenderness. You are a whole human being facing a deeply personal choice.

“Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves.” - Rainer Maria Rilke, Letters to a Young Poet

Recommended Book:
For a compassionate and nonjudgmental approach to a difficult pregnancy decision, Pregnancy Options Workbook by Peg Johnston offers reflection exercises and balanced information about abortion, adoption, and parenting to help a person listen carefully to their own values and circumstances.

Additional Support:
A licensed healthcare professional can provide accurate medical information about pregnancy and your available options. A qualified counselor or nonjudgmental pregnancy-options counselor can also provide a confidential place to sort through your feelings and values.

Affirmative Prayer:
Infinite Presence, I become still within the wisdom of the One Life. I release the voices of fear, pressure, and confusion and listen for the deepest truth within me. Divine Intelligence guides my questions, my conversations, and my decision. I am worthy of accurate information, compassionate support, and the freedom to discern what is right for my life. I trust myself to listen carefully and choose consciously. Whatever emotions arise, I meet myself with compassion. Spirit is present with me here, giving wisdom for this moment and strength for each step that follows. And so it is. Amen.
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Abortion – Finding Healing and Peace Afterward
People experience abortion in many different ways. You may feel relief, sadness, grief, peace, guilt, certainty, regret, or a mixture that changes over time. Your experience does not have to conform to anyone else’s expectation of how you should feel.

Begin with honesty. Let your own feelings be yours. If sadness is present, allow yourself to grieve. If relief is present, you do not need to manufacture guilt. If the decision still troubles you, give yourself permission to explore why without turning the exploration into punishment.

Sometimes the circumstances surrounding the abortion carry as much pain as the abortion itself. Perhaps you felt alone, pressured, frightened, unsupported, or caught in circumstances that seemed impossible. Healing may involve attending to the whole experience rather than one decision isolated from everything around it.

If you believe you acted against your deepest values, self-forgiveness may become part of your healing. Forgiveness does not erase the past. It allows you to acknowledge what happened, receive whatever wisdom it has given you, and stop requiring yourself to suffer indefinitely.

You may find meaning in a personal ritual – writing privately, praying, lighting a candle, planting something, speaking with a trusted minister or counselor, or simply acknowledging the pregnancy in whatever way feels honest to you. There is no required ritual and no timetable.

Nothing you have experienced places you outside Divine Love. Spirit does not withdraw when human life becomes complicated. The One Life remains within you as compassion, healing, wisdom, and the possibility of peace.

“The boundary to what we can accept is the boundary to our freedom.” - Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance

This seems particularly right for the reading. Healing does not require deciding that everything was good or easy. It begins with being able to acknowledge honestly what happened and what one feels about it.

Recommended Book:
For a compassionate approach to the emotional aftermath of abortion, The Healing Choice by Dana Dovitch and Candace De Puy offers nonjudgmental guidance for working through grief, relief, sadness, guilt, regret, and other feelings that may follow the experience.

Additional Support:
A counselor experienced in pregnancy and reproductive concerns can provide a nonjudgmental place to process your experience. After-abortion peer-support programs are also available for people who want to speak with someone who understands the range of emotions that may follow an abortion.

Affirmative Prayer:
Infinite Presence, I bring my whole experience into the light of Divine Love. I allow every honest feeling to be present without judgment. I release the belief that I must punish myself in order to honor what has happened. Where grief needs expression, I grieve. Where forgiveness is needed, I forgive. Where understanding is still unfolding, I give it time. The Divine Life within me remains whole, compassionate, and forever capable of renewal. I gather the wisdom of the past and carry it forward with greater tenderness toward myself and others. Peace takes root within me now. And so it is. Amen.
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Abortion – When Someone You Love Is Considering Abortion
When someone you love is considering abortion, you may have strong feelings of your own. You may know immediately what you hope they will decide. You may feel frightened, protective, disappointed, relieved, confused, or unsure what to say.
Begin by listening. Ask what the person needs from you. They may want information, practical help, a place to talk, or simply someone who can hear them without turning the conversation into an argument.

You can share your feelings honestly, particularly if you are directly affected by the pregnancy, but honesty is different from pressure. Avoid threats, guilt, manipulation, repeated persuasion, or using your relationship as leverage. The person making the decision needs room to consider their own health, circumstances, values, responsibilities, and future.

If this is your child, remember that loving your child does not give you ownership of their inner life. If this is your partner, your feelings matter too, but the medical decision involves their body. If it is a friend or other family member, your greatest gift may be the ability to remain present while they discern what they will do. Stay connected.

“Listening is where love begins: listening to ourselves and then to others.” - Fred Rogers, The World According to Mister Rogers

Recommended Book:
For a practical guide to listening without immediately advising, correcting, or taking over another person’s problem, The Lost Art of Listening by Michael Nichols and Martha Straus offers useful guidance for creating conversations in which people feel genuinely heard.

Additional Support:
All-Options provides confidential, judgment-free support for people making decisions about pregnancy and for those who care about them. Planned Parenthood also provides factual, nonjudgmental information about pregnancy options and can help people find appropriate medical care.

Affirmative Prayer:
Infinite Presence is the Love and Wisdom within everyone involved in this decision. I quiet my fear and release the need to control another person’s path. Divine Wisdom guides my words so that I can be honest, compassionate, and respectful. I listen deeply. I remain present. I trust the person I love to discern what is right for their life, and I trust Spirit to be present in that discernment. Love moves through me as patience, clarity, support, and care. And so it is. Amen.
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Acceptance – Letting Go of What Life Used to Be
Some losses do not end when the event itself is over. A relationship ends, health changes, children grow up, a career closes, someone dies, or circumstances alter the life you once knew. Even after the facts have changed, part of you may still be living in comparison with what used to be.

Acceptance begins by seeing clearly where you are now. It does not require you to like what happened or pretend that the loss does not matter. It allows you to stop fighting reality long enough to discover how life can continue from here.

There is grief in releasing the picture of how things were supposed to remain. Let yourself honor what was good. Remember it. Bless it. Then begin turning your attention toward the life that is still present.

Spirit is alive in this moment, not only in the life you had before. The same Infinite Presence that moved through the past is here now, expressing through changed circumstances, new relationships, different possibilities, and strengths you may not yet know you possess.

Acceptance creates room. When your energy is no longer consumed by trying to return to yesterday, you become more available to what life is asking of you today.

“When we are no longer able to change a situation, we are challenged to change ourselves.” - Viktor Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Recommended Book:
For a deeper understanding of accepting painful realities without becoming passive or defeated, When Things Fall Apart by Pema Chödrön offers spiritual guidance for staying present when familiar structures disappear and life no longer looks the way we expected.

Affirmative Prayer:
Infinite Presence is the Life within me now. I honor what has been and release the need for life to return to an earlier form. Divine Wisdom helps me meet this moment with honesty, courage, and peace. I carry forward the love, learning, and good that belong to me, and I open myself to what is possible now. Spirit moves through change with me. I am supported as I release, adjust, and begin to live fully within the life before me. And so it is. Amen.
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Beginning Again – Finding Courage After Disappointment 
or Failure
Beginning again can be difficult when something you hoped for has failed. A plan may have collapsed. A relationship may have ended. A business, project, or personal goal may not have worked out. You may be disappointed not only in what happened, but in yourself.
Failure can make the future feel smaller than it really is. One experience begins to sound like a verdict: maybe I cannot do this, maybe I chose badly, maybe I waited too long, maybe I should stop trying.

Pause before turning disappointment into identity. Something failed. That does not mean you are a failure. Look honestly at what happened. What worked? What did not? What did you learn about timing, preparation, relationships, your own strengths, or what you truly want? There is wisdom in experience when you are willing to receive it without condemning yourself.

Beginning again does not mean pretending nothing happened. It means carrying the lesson forward without carrying unnecessary shame. Spirit is endlessly creative. Life does not run out of possibilities because one path closes. Take the next step you can see. Courage often appears after movement begins, not before.

“You may encounter many defeats, but you must not be defeated.” - Maya Angelou, Conversations with Maya Angelou

Recommended Book:
For a hopeful, real-world perspective on recovering after failure, disappointment, or a painful setback, Rising Strong by Brené Brown examines how people reckon honestly with what happened, learn from it, and find the courage to begin again.

Affirmative Prayer:
Infinite Presence within me is courage, creativity, and new possibility. I release the belief that one disappointment determines what comes next. I receive the wisdom this experience has given me and carry it forward. Divine Intelligence reveals the next step, and I have the strength to take it. I trust my capacity to learn, adapt, and begin again. Life continues to open before me, and I meet it with greater wisdom, renewed courage, and an open heart. And so it is. Amen.
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Change – Facing the Fear of Change
Change can stir fear even when the change is something you chose. A new job, retirement, marriage, divorce, illness, relocation, financial change, or a shift in family life can unsettle the familiar patterns that once made life feel predictable. Part of the fear comes from not knowing. The old situation may have been difficult, but at least you understood it. The new one has not yet become familiar.

Give yourself time to adjust. Change often requires learning new routines, new roles, and sometimes a new understanding of yourself. You do not have to feel completely confident before taking the next step.

Focus on what is within your reach. Gather information. Make practical plans. Talk with people who can help. Keep some familiar routines while other parts of life are changing. Break large transitions into smaller decisions.

Spirit is constant even when circumstances are not. The form of life changes continually, but the Presence within you remains. You carry wisdom, resilience, experience, and inner guidance into every new chapter. Fear may accompany change for a while. It does not have to direct it.

“The only way to make sense out of change is to plunge into it, move with it, and join the dance.” - Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity

Recommended Book:
For a clear, step-by-step approach to navigating major changes, Transitions by William Bridges and Susan Bridges explains the movement through endings, the uncertain space between what was and what will be, and the gradual emergence of a new beginning.

Affirmative Prayer:
Infinite Presence is steady within me through every change. I release my need to know the entire path before I move forward. Divine Wisdom guides me one step at a time. I meet new circumstances with curiosity, courage, and trust. The strength, intelligence, and adaptability I need are already present within me. I remain grounded in the One Life as familiar forms change around me. I welcome the new possibilities that are opening and move into them with peace. And so it is. Amen.
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Home – Finding Your Way After the Loss of a Home
Losing a home can be deeply painful. A home is more than a building. It may hold years of memories, family gatherings, familiar rooms, neighborhood relationships, possessions, routines, and a sense of safety and belonging.

The loss may come through fire, disaster, foreclosure, financial hardship, divorce, eviction, or circumstances beyond your control. Whatever the cause, grief is natural. You may be mourning both a physical place and the life that happened there.

Attend first to immediate needs. Find safe shelter. Ask family, friends, community organizations, insurance professionals, legal or financial advisers, or other appropriate resources for help. When many practical problems arrive at once, handle what is most urgent and allow other decisions to wait.

Give yourself permission to grieve belongings and memories without judging yourself for caring about material things. Objects often represent people, events, and chapters of life. Their meaning was real.

At the same time, remember that the deepest meaning of home cannot be destroyed with a structure. Love, memory, identity, and belonging travel with you. The Presence that filled one place is present wherever you are. A new home may eventually take form. It will not replace what was lost, but life can once again become rooted, familiar, and secure.

“The experience of loss does not have to be the defining moment in our lives.” - Jerry Sittser, A Grace Disguised

Recommended Book:
For a wise and humane exploration of devastating loss, A Grace Disguised by Jerry Sittser examines how grief can be absorbed into a life without being erased, and how meaning, depth, and even joy can gradually coexist with what has been lost.

Affirmative Prayer:
Infinite Presence surrounds me wherever I am. I grieve what has been lost and give thanks for the life, memories, and love that filled my home. Divine Wisdom guides me through every practical decision and connects me with the people and resources I need. I am supported as I rebuild stability and create a new place of safety and belonging. Home is more than walls. The Presence of Love goes with me, and from that Presence I begin again. And so it is. Amen.
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Moving – Leaving a Familiar Community and Beginning Somewhere New
Leaving a familiar community can feel like losing many things at once. You may miss friends, neighbors, familiar roads, favorite places, your Spiritual Center, local traditions, and the simple comfort of knowing where you belong.

Even when the move is welcome, the transition can bring loneliness. A new community has not yet accumulated history. Relationships are still unfamiliar. Ordinary tasks require more thought.

Stay connected with the people who matter from the place you left, but also begin making small openings where you are now. Introduce yourself to neighbors. Find places you enjoy. Visit community groups, volunteer organizations, classes, or a Spiritual Center. Return to the same coffee shop, walking trail, library, or gathering place often enough for faces to become familiar.

Belonging usually develops gradually. It is built through repeated contact, shared experience, and the willingness to let yourself be known. Spirit is present in the new place before you arrive. The One Life is not divided by geography. There are relationships, experiences, and possibilities here that you cannot yet see. Let the old community remain part of your story while allowing the new one to become part of it too.

“Home is where one starts from.” - T. S. Eliot, Four Quartets

Recommended Book:
For a practical and engaging look at creating belonging after a move, This Is Where You Belong by Melody Warnick explores how attachment to a new community develops through participation, relationships, familiar places, and the repeated experiences that gradually make somewhere feel like home.

Affirmative Prayer:
Infinite Presence is everywhere, and I am at home within this One Life wherever I may be. I bless the people and places that have shaped me and carry their love with me. Divine Wisdom guides me into new relationships, new community, and new belonging. I open myself to people I have not yet met and experiences I cannot yet imagine. Familiarity grows. Connections deepen. I allow this new place to become part of my life, trusting the good that is already done. And so it is. Amen
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