Miracle #45 -The IRS Forgave My Debt When I Forgave the IRS

 

Photo Credit:  Kat Yukawa

Scarcity thinking must have been programmed into my DNA.

My grandmother once told me that she took me grocery shopping when I was 3 years old, and she offered to buy me a box of animal crackers at the checkout counter. I replied, “I can’t have those. They’re too ‘spensive.” She thought it was cute that I couldn’t even pronounce the word “expensive” and probably didn’t know what it meant. My mother had trained me well not to ask for things she couldn’t afford.

For decades I had a love-hate relationship with finances. I loved to make money and I hated to part with it! I felt empowered when I had income but vulnerable when I had debt.

There were many years where I lay in bed at night trying to figure out how to pay bills. It was the last thing on my mind before I fell asleep, and the first thing on my mind when I awoke.

When I was still working, I would calculate my finances while showering in the morning. When I stopped working to stay home with the kids, I would log on to our bank account first thing daily to check our balances.

It was madness.

After the fear, worry, sadness, regret and other “negative” emotions that I carried fell away as a result of my spiritual practice of A Course in Miracles, the money thing still lingered in the background.

It was the cause of pretty much every argument I ever had with my husband. He liked to spend and I liked to save, so we were always at odds.

In one marriage counseling session, I had an epiphany: no matter how much money I had in the bank, it would never be enough!

I had worked hard the past few years to undo this paradigm of lack. I felt that I was making good progress until a letter from the Internal Revenue Service arrived in the mail, stating that we owed $5000 in back taxes for 2015.

I was going to calmly settle the matter. I was going to show the IRS that they were wrong, and they would have to fight me to get that money.

I mentally congratulated myself for not flipping out over it.

I wrote them a letter and countered their claims. They wrote back and said that they needed more info.

I gathered more info and wrote back. They wrote back and said they had recalculated the figure, but that I stilled owed them.

Finally, after many months of this back-and-forth battle, I paid them $2500.

It was a stressful year.

In retrospect I was able to see that my resistance made the process longer and more painful than necessary.

A few weeks ago I got another letter from the Internal Revenue Service. This one said that I owed $9000 in back taxes for 2017!

Does anyone see a pattern here?

What we have not healed keeps returning in different forms until we are able to forgive the issue. Then it just disappears from our lives.

What to do?

A Course in Miracles says: Do nothing, then, and let forgiveness show you what to do, through Him Who is your Guide, your Savior and Protector, strong in hope, and certain of your ultimate success. 

After sitting quietly with this issue, I decided to consult a CPA. I forwarded my tax return and the letter from the IRS to her, then turned the situation over to the Holy Spirit.

The CPA just reported back that she thinks the IRS made a mistake and we don’t owe them anything.

Thank You, Holy Spirit

Forgiveness recognizes what you thought your brother did to you has not occurred. It does not pardon sins and make them real. It sees there was no sin. And in that view are all your sins forgiven. - Workbook, Part II Introduction