Received by Mercedes Kirkel
On May 5, 2014

Question: Some people have a hard time with the idea that we create everything we experience when they think about people who are suffering. For example, did a child who has been sexually abused create that experience? Can you help explain this?

Mary Magdalene: Hello my dearest one. I come with my heart full of love for you and for all who share this question and will be tuning in to the answer. This is an age-old question that has troubled humans for time immemorial. Often it has been asked in this form: If God exists, why does He (or She) allow suffering?

Once again I will do my best to answer and to shed light on this question, so as to bring understanding, peace, and hopefully greater connection to God and the spiritual process. I will specifically address the question you initially asked of why, if humans create their own reality, is there suffering, especially in situations where those suffering seem helpless. I will take the example you offered of children who are sexually abused.

The first thing I want to acknowledge is that there is great suffering in these circumstances, both on the part of those receiving the abuse as well as on the part of those providing the abuse, though of course the forms of suffering are different. For now, let us focus on those receiving the abuse. I want to clarify that I see their suffering as absolutely real and often extremely difficult and painful for them, both at the time it occurs and afterward in terms of how it affects their life. I do not wish to deny or minimize this pain and suffering in any way.

When someone is in great pain or suffering in the third dimension, it is easy and often common to view them as a victim. When I use the term “victim,” I am referring to more than just the facts about their situation and the pain or suffering that they are experiencing as a result of that situation. I am referring to something else that is added to all of that. It is the idea that they are the recipients of some form of wrongdoing and that they are innocent in a way that makes them somehow more holy or pure or elevated, and certainly better than the one(s) who engaged the abuse in relation to them.

This is a very tender topic and I wish to discuss it with the utmost sensitivity and care for those who have gone through such situations and experienced great pain and suffering as a result. I have great compassion for such ones, and I am not saying that I like or support what occurred. I do not like or support any form of violence or harm done toward another. In fact, I see this as a huge part of the spiritual process beings at the third dimension are learning about and growing beyond—learning that it is not beneficial for anyone when harm is done to another, whether you are on the side of the one(s) doing or receiving the harm.

Because this is such a significant lesson in your dimension, a great deal of peoples’ life-lessons in their many incarnations are devoted to exploring this. This exploration happens in the form of taking on different experiences of the same issue in different lifetimes. In one lifetime a soul may be an abuser and in another lifetime the recipient of abuse. This is how souls learn all the different aspects of an issue.

When you are considering a particular soul who is in a particular situation, you must look at more than just that isolated lifetime to truly understand what is occurring in the greater spiritual picture. This is difficult for most humans, because most of you do not remember previous lifetimes—your own or others’. This is part of the design of your world, so that you can have the purest experience of your present lifetime, without being influenced by your prior knowledge. When you die and are returned to your inter-life state, you will remember your previous lifetimes and you will be able to understand your current lifetime in the greater context of all your lifetimes. This is when you will harvest the growth and fruits of your experiences in this lifetime and integrate with your full soul nature. This will prepare you to continue on with your soul journey in whatever way will serve your next stage of growth.

Many people on earth do not understand this process fully. Many do not believe in the greater picture of the soul’s journey, which includes many reincarnations. And many people do not understand how that relates to what occurs in your present life. This is compounded by the consciousness of the third dimension, which adds in ideas that you ultimately must transcend.

One of the ideas is that you have no choice over what happens to you. This is very much a part of the victim consciousness I was referring to earlier. This idea is especially strong for people when they think of children. Children are seen as “blank slates” that have no choice about their circumstances.

But the reality is that everyone has exercised choice about their circumstances in the pre-life state. You have a great deal of choice at that time about the circumstances and events of the life you are about to incarnate into, including what will happen to you when you are a child. Those who are in circumstances of abuse have, in general, chosen that as part of their life path.

Why would a soul make a choice to be abused as a child? One possibility is that they themselves have been an abuser in another incarnation. This is a painful thought for many who have been recipients of abuse, because they have experienced the pain and suffering that resulted from their abuse and it is additionally painful to consider that they may have caused similar pain and suffering for others. Yet isn’t this exactly the kind of insight and understanding that any soul would need in order to grow beyond the pattern of inflicting pain and suffering on others?

It is not that they have incarnated into a situation of abuse as punishment for their past deeds or because they need to suffer to absolve themselves of sin. These are human ideas that have been superimposed upon you. The real reason is all about soul growth. Many at the human level do not understand what the results are of inflicting pain and suffering on others, and so they need to learn these lessons and grow beyond the stage where it is still attractive to inflict pain and suffering. This kind of soul growth generally happens through experiences in the real world, and it most often happens over a series of many lifetimes.

Right now your world is riddled with circumstances of people inflicting pain and suffering on others. This happens physically, in cases such as war, domestic violence, crime, bullying, torture, and all kinds of physical acts that are tolerated socially but that result in pain and suffering for individuals or groups. This happens financially and socially, where individuals or groups are deprived of well-being by others. And it happens emotionally, where people are hurt by others at the emotional level in all kinds of ways. The inflicting of emotional pain is perhaps the most pervasive, and also the most subtle level of pain and suffering that is woven into the fabric of life in the third dimension.

Everyone who is still appearing in the third dimension is still in the process of growing beyond this consciousness and its resultant manifestation. You are growing beyond the consciousness that it is OK or necessary to hurt others. It is not necessary and it is not beneficial—to anyone. But you are all in the process of learning this.

Again, this may be difficult to hear, take in, and believe for many. You may feel that you do not hurt anyone—that it is others that hurt people but not you. You may feel that you or others are victims and are not responsible for the pain or suffering that you or others are feeling and experiencing. These are hallmarks of third-dimensional consciousness. They are based in separation and also in the belief of “me versus them,” that “I am fine, or good, or just, or of the light” and “others are dark, or evil, or bad, or the problem, or the cause of suffering.”

When you get to the place where you start to suspect yourself, you are making progress. When you get to the place of noticing the common denominator in all the various circumstances of your experience—that you are present in every one while all the other factors change—you are making progress. When you start to be more interested in your own growth and evolution than in pointing fingers at others, you are making progress. When you begin to go beyond blaming others or feeling separate from and superior to others who you experience as doing harm, you are making process. When you start to experience gratitude instead of resentment, you are making progress.

A person who has experienced abuse, at any age, may have a great deal of healing to do before they can get to the place of experiencing gratitude that is authentic, rather than an idea that they overlay on top of their suffering as a kind of suppression. That healing work is extremely important, including authentic grieving of their pain and suffering. True grieving is essential and is what will lead you to your soul’s growth. If that grieving is bypassed, the soul will likely require more experiences to receive those lessons.

At this time in your world, many do not understand and value the process of grieving. Many have substituted anger for grieving, being angry at the outer circumstances, and especially at those who seem to have caused the suffering, rather than doing the deep inner work to heal and grow from the suffering. Because of this, many people are stuck in their soul work. Ideas such as there being innocent victims are symptoms of such stuckness. To get beyond this, you require support from those who understand the grieving process and the spiritual gifts it provides.

This is why I gave the detailed instructions that are recorded in Mary Magdalene Beckons—to help people with this process of responding to pain and allow people to let their pain take them into greater union with God. The opportunity for such growth is why individuals chose their pain in the first place, even if they do not remember or realize that they did so.

It is also the case that some people have chosen the experience of receiving abuse, even as a child, as a form of service to the soul growth of the others involved. But most of the time the service is mutual. Everyone involved has chosen the circumstance because it provides the opportunity of soul growth for all.

I realize that there is tremendous pain and confusion in your world and that it is not easy to make sense of it all. I hope this has contributed to your understanding and your peace. Ultimately, I hope it has contributed to your ability to trust in God and surrender in the midst of that trust. That is your greatest resource and the most direct path of growth, as long as it is authentic.

I love you most fully and profoundly,

I AM Mary Magdalene