Miracle Voices - A Course In Miracles Podcast (ACIM) · Judy Skutch Whitson, Tam Morgan, and Matthew McCabe

Ep 154 - I Gave Up on the World - Philip Hedgepath

·39 min·2 clips

Phil Hedgepath joins from Nashville. He says he has lived there all his life and settles into a story about learning forgiveness through small, stubborn moments, beginning with a bacon experience that made him notice the world seemed to be made of thoughts. The lesson stayed with him. He says he is still trying to generalize it, still trying to give love away while life keeps feeling accusatory and costly. Nothing feels polished. The story moves into a Bible study he attends on his lunch break, where he is late, hot, worried about what people will think, and juggling a change of clothes with the usual pressure of being on time. That is where the day tightens. In a deli line, a woman with an angry voice and scary eyes cuts in front of him after challenging the idea of two lines. He takes it personally. He says he tries to judge the moment against every memory he has, and the result is a full-sized grievance, the kind that makes one small interaction feel like the worst thing anyone has ever done. Then he catches himself. He admits he was thinking about causing her pain, but remembers his forgiveness prayer and reaches for Jesus when he cannot quite get the words together on his own. The prayer is messy. He does not frame it as a clean breakthrough, only as a sincere attempt that did not feel dramatic in the moment. Even so, the scene keeps moving. After the woman orders, he notices she has left her keys on the counter. He slides his hand over and takes them, keeping the story grounded in the tiny consequences of a tense exchange. The hosts welcome the account warmly and connect it back to the show's idea of joining. Phil says that is what his whole life is about. The episode leaves him inside that unfinished work, where ordinary irritation and forgiveness practice keep meeting each other.

As heard by us

A loose, honest forgiveness story rooted in lunch-hour irritation and everyday spiritual practice.

An ordinary lunch-run grievance and a strange bacon lesson open into Phil Hedgepath's long, unguarded account of learning forgiveness the hard way.

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Why you'd press play

If you want a forgiveness story that starts with a deli line, this one turns a small public clash into an ACIM lesson.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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