 I saw my neighbor snipping buttons off a pile of shirts. She explained she was giving the shirts away. I wondered how useful a button-less shirt would be to someone! Then she explained that the buttons were an expensive component of the shirt, but when compared with buying a new one they would be a negligible expense for the recipient. Her household operated on a tightly stretched budget. She cared about others and wanted to share what she could, but she felt she really needed those buttons. There are many laudable ways to give for the benefit of others. But there’s also a lot of disagreement as to what constitutes the best style of giving. Some say to give too little is harmful. Others say the same about giving too much. Is it too much to hope for a solution to the dilemma? In his letter to the Corinthians, Paul speaks of a Biblical law that relates to charitable giving. “Each of you should give what you have decided in your heart to give, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver. And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work. As it is written: ‘They have freely scattered their gifts to the poor; their righteousness endures forever.’ Now he who supplies seed to the sower and bread for food will also supply and increase your store of seed and will enlarge the harvest of your righteousness. You will be enriched in every way so that you can be generous on every occasion, and through us your generosity will result in thanksgiving to God.” II Corinthians 9:7-11 NIV  To me, Paul points out that mindful giving with the heart engaged works best for everyone. During a period of severe drought, God directed the prophet Elisha to pass by the home of a widow woman and ask for food and drink. When he did, she replied that she and her son didn’t have even enough flour and oil to bake bread for the two of them. She was at the end of her rope. But Elisha didn’t back off from his request. He still urged, “Fear not… make me thereof a little cake first, and bring it unto me, and afterward make for thee and for thy son. For thus saith the Lord God of Israel: ‘The barrel of meal shall not waste, neither shall the cruse of oil fail, until the day that the Lord sendeth rain upon the earth.’” I Kings 17: 13,14 Elisha knew the divine law of giving. From the infinite resource of divine Love, we all have the capacity to give. God provides all things necessary for his creation to thrive. No one is left out. Mary Baker Eddy explained, “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.” The widow prepared Elijah’s meal and, instead of running out, her family was blessed with ongoing provision. Divine Love and its benevolent power is never absent nor inactive. Man as the image and likeness of God has the right and ability to reflect God's abundant benevolence in cheerful giving. God never withholds good from His children. We can each cultivate a deeper understanding of God and his law of unfailing divine good.  Mrs. Eddy wrote, “Wholly apart from this mortal dream, this illusion and delusion of sense, Christian Science comes to reveal man as God’s image, His idea, coexistent with Him — God giving all and man having all that God gives.” The First Church of Christ, Scientist and Miscellany, 5:7-10 So to the question, Should you keep the buttons? Knowing yourself as the abundant reflection, the image and idea, of the divine Love that is our benevolent God, you will find your way to how best to help others. And in so doing you will also help yourself. Georgia Bulloch, CSB is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher based in Houston, Texas. She welcomes your comments below and can also be reached at [email protected].
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 Today's Daily Lift, "I know it," is based on the following experience, which first appeared on this blog in November of 2011: Sometimes you just have to put your foot down when you pray. At least that is what I learned when our Labrador puppy started showing the symptoms of detached retina and hip dysplasia - two conditions apparently associated with her breed and bloodline. I was pretty overwhelmed at the prospects of life with a blind, crippled "horse" of a dog in my home. I wanted to pray about this - wanted to see it healed through prayer. But I was finding it difficult not to be pulled down into the problem. So I did what I often do when I feel stuck. I went back to the basics and studied Jesus' approach to praying - The Lord's Prayer as recorded in Matthew's gospel. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures takes a line-by-line look at the underlying spiritual message of this prayer that emphasizes God's sovereign power over creation and our right and ability to pray with authority. One line of the Lord's Prayer was particularly helpful to me: "Thy kingdom come; thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." Science and Health brings out the authority of this divine petition. Author Mary Baker Eddy gives her spiritual sense, "Enable us to know, - as in heaven, so on earth, - God is omnipotent, supreme." Jesus' prayer emphasizes a direct and powerful correspondence between heaven (which to me indicates spiritual consciousness or an understanding of God) and earth (practical everyday experience). Heaven doesn't reflect earth. The lesser doesn't influence the greater. It's the other way around. What is real and true in human experience reflects God. And our present spiritual understanding of God reveals it in human experience - as indicated by the law of "as in heaven so on earth."  Up until this puppy problem arose, I had a tendency to feel that if something was going wrong in my life, with my health, or in my environment, that it was my fault - that I didn't know enough or understand God sufficiently to have a better experience. I had it backwards. When I read those lines from the Lord's Prayer and its spiritual sense in Science and Health, I realized that I have always had the authority to take a stand for what I know to be true. I suddenly thought, "You know, even on my worst day, I do have a better understanding of God than is represented by a blind, crippled dog!" I decided that when I pray I would no longer try to compensate for what I didn't know. I would exercise the power of what I did know. We have the right to pray with authority drawn from our present understanding of God. I started to mentally stomp my foot when I prayed for the puppy. That is, every time I saw her walk into a wall or drag her leg oddly, I said, "No! No! I refuse to accept that these images of disease reflect my understanding of God and His infinite good." I defended my spiritual understanding, even if it was slight, and declared "God's will is done on earth as it is in heaven, and I know it!" I think what gave my prayers (and me) such authority was that this method of prayer wasn't my own bright idea. Christ Jesus, the master healer, taught his students the fundamentals of healing prayer. Jesus said, "Let your communication be, Yea, yea; Nay, nay." Matthew 5:37 To me, Jesus is describing a "double-tap" method of prayer. A "double-tap" is a shooting technique where two well-aimed shots are fired at the same target with very little time in between shots. Instruction and practice of the double-tap improves overall accuracy as shooters often do not have the gun fully extended on the first shot, meaning the second of a double-tap is usually the better. A one-yea prayer affirms what is true about God and man. But a two-yea prayer adds the element of spiritual authority that affirms the understanding of God as an unshakeable truth that extends into every part of human consciousness.  Similarly, a one-nay prayer denies the right of evil to control or influence us. But a two-nay prayer shoots the second tap that stomps on error as having no right or authority over us or anyone else.
Understanding and exercising your authority fully extends your prayer from a personal truth to a divine law that governs everyone and everything with precision and force. I double-yayed and double-nayed with stomp-your-foot authority for one solid month. Then one day - while sitting in my yard feeling such gratitude for every little thing I truly did understand of God's goodness - I looked up and saw our pup run down the street to meet our little girl as she got off the school bus. The dog saw her from at least a block away. And she ran without a single hitch in her get-along! This was the end of both problems. That the symptoms persisted during that month didn't weaken my resolve in prayer. Why? Because the suggestion that I was so ignorant as to accept blindness and frailty as the best I could expect from life was absolutely unbelievable. I could defend myself by leaning on Christ Jesus' own words - Thy will be done, is done, on earth as it is in heaven. I didn't come up with that. Jesus did! I figure he knew what he was talking about. STOMP.  “There’s got to be a way out of this!” I was getting that pressure-cooker feeling again for the umpteenth time that week. I was on my way home from the doctor’s office and my head was spinning,—but let me back up a bit. To say I had been feeling stressed would be putting it mildly. Everywhere I turned there was pressure to make decisions, get things done in impossible time windows--and there was no end in sight. My job was high pressure: I had to make split-second financial decisions in the hundreds of thousands, up to a couple million dollars. That was stressful. Then there was the daily cash issue. I had to decide by 10 a.m. what my cash needs would be. Any mistakes from me would rain flak on our officers. Not good. Generally things went well, but there were certain times each month where the intensity skyrocketed. Basically at work I simply had to be right, --and be quick about it.  Night school and a household that included a toddler rounded out my life demands. While glad to be doing all these things - they were all important to me - the walls seemed to be closing in. Naturally, I tried to make adjustments here and there, and things might ease up for a while, but nothing really broke the intensity and I found myself getting dragged down more and more. I started having anxiety attacks. Why couldn’t I get on top of these demands and stay there? Not the most helpful question, it just added self-condemnation to my troubles. But I took the bait, felt worthless, and proceeded to consider doing something totally foreign to me. At my company’s required annual physical exam, I conferred with the doctor about the stress and growing anxiety I was feeling. She reluctantly prescribed sleeping pills and I had the prescription filled on my way home. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d taken a pill, not even an aspirin, but I had reached a point of desperation. Driving home from the doctor’s office, I was really wanting some peace. But oddly enough, having the promise of an escape quite literally in my hands didn’t feel right. I found myself thinking, “But that’s not the way you do things. Besides, you don’t need a dodge—you need a solution.” I became suddenly calm. When I got home I just put the pills in the cabinet. I was less sure they held the answer and I needed time to reconsider before I took any. I sat down and read one of the free magazines I’d recently picked up at a local business. It was a copy of the Christian Science Sentinel which I’d heard of but had never read before. The articles weren’t only interesting but also uplifting. The Sentinel also reconnected me with some childhood experiences that were more valuable than I had realized - my attendance (albeit quite irregular) at Christian Science Sunday School.  I read stories of people just like me who were finding solutions to their daily challenges by turning to God. I was really impressed that these folks weren’t acting on some blind faith in God. They really knew God and how to get His help. They talked about the Christ, God’s power and presence that meets human needs. Boy, did I want to to know and have confidence in God - and I wanted that help. For the next several days I left the pills alone and kept up with reading Sentinels. I also found and started reading my childhood copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, the textbook of Christian Science. I felt spiritually fed as I continued to read. One night soon after, when especially anxious and feeling so vulnerable, the words of a hymn that I remembered from Sunday School came back to minister to me. “O gentle presence, peace and joy and power…” (“Mother’s Evening Prayer” by Mary Baker Eddy, Hymn 206, Christian Science Hymnal). These words were praying in my thought. I could hear them. I realized that this “gentle presence” was God. And in that moment I realized I did know God, that I had always known Him. I felt so safe. This was a turning point. I experienced no more fear or the intense stress of the anxiety attacks. I no longer felt I was battling alone. I threw away the sleeping pills without ever taking a single one. I have since learned that the voice of comfort speaking to me in the night was the healing Christ, reassuring me that God was here and could help. It was the same Christ that had reasoned with me in the car when I first decided to wait before taking the pills. Escaping or sleeping my troubles away wasn’t the answer. Waking up to the presence of God, and listening to the Christ that reminds us that God is “our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble,” is the ultimate problem-solver that never lets us down. (See Psalms 46:1)  Georgia Bulloch, CSB is a Christian Science practitioner and teacher based in Houston, Texas. She welcomes your comments below and can also be reached directly at [email protected]. Not a subscriber and want to be?
Easy. Just sign up in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE FIND LINKS TO MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT LISTEN TO A COLLECTION OF MY "YOUR DAILY LIFT" 2-MINUTE PODCASTS 10/17/2014 7 Comments A helpful comment From a reader, commenting on the 10/14/2014 post titled "After disappointment, peace and progress."
"I think one reason this post is having such an impact is it fills a void in the messaging about what it means to follow Christ in the daily practice of Christian Science. We have plenty of articles, blogs, podcasts, about success, healing, and other preferred outcomes. But it can be disheartening for a long-time Christian Scientist to feel they are the only ones who've ever felt temporarily defeated, because we read so little about the human struggle. But even Jesus' closest disciples felt the sting of confusion, disappointment, rejection, and feelings of inadequacy. "You have shown great compassion in sharing your story and spiritual journey so honestly. Many will be encouraged to keep pressing on in spite of difficulties. After all, Christian Science is NOT a "prosperity gospel" ... it is the demonstration of the way of Christ, which includes at least some cross-bearing and sacrifice of human outlining in our journey to understand and do the will of God. Things do "work together for good" (Rom. 8:28), just not always in the way we might have imagined! Thanks again!" Cindy  Many years ago a friend and Christian healer told me that she had never read an article on healing the aftermath of a crushing disappointment. She thought that I should write one. The funny thing is that she often said this to me when I was in the depths of inconsolable despair, feeling that I was denied something I wanted terribly. I never felt qualified to give a healing response. But now, at 3:20 am on a Tuesday morning in October, I suddenly do. So here is that article. I had always longed to find and fulfill my unique niche. Life, to me, has been an adventure of discovering my role and my talents and putting them to good use. This search has opened amazing and wonderful doors. It’s also led to some closed doors that were difficult to move beyond. Soaring satisfaction with my life was sometimes interrupted by earth-shattering disappointment when opportunities I felt should be mine didn’t appear when and where I expected or wanted them. I have learned that we each really do have a niche, a role, an indispensable place, a particular mission in time and eternity. From a time sense, I mean that no one can replace any one of us in the individual and unique path of yielding to progress and divine good that we can call human experience. From an eternal perspective, not one single idea of God can be pushed, pulled or knocked off his unique and essential course as the reflection of the Almighty God.  Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy once wrote, “No person can take the individual place of the Virgin Mary. No person can compass or fulfill the individual mission of Jesus of Nazareth. No person can take the place of the author of Science and Health, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. Each individual must fill his own niche in time and eternity.” (Retrospection and Introspection , 70) I learned a few things about filling my niche when I applied to be a teacher of Christian Science. The Manual of The Mother Church – a document that provides for the offices and roles that support and sustain the healing practice of Christian Science worldwide – invites those who are qualified through their faithful healing practice to apply for what is called the Normal class. This class is an intensive training session that takes place once every three years for a select number out of many qualified applicants. Early on in my practice, I felt God was calling me to the teaching work, so I applied. I still remember walking out to our chicken house where my husband (my chief supporter/defender) was doing chores. I had the most tender and lovingly written rejection letter tumbling out of my hand. He thought someone had died when he first saw me. I was a blubbering, crying, inconsolable mess.  It wasn’t that I had never been denied something I had wanted before. It was that I had never wanted to do anything this much before. I loved the practice of Christian Science. I saw it as my mission to practice and teach it. How could the right answer be “not now”? I thought there had to be some mistake. So in the remaining months preceding the class, I waited for a second missive to appear in the mail saying that an error had been discovered and that indeed I was welcome to come. That appeal never came. Over the next couple of years other wonderful doors did open for me. I threw all my energy into study of the Bible and the textbook that develops ones healing practice, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. I found an outlet for my longing to teach through accepting an appointment as a Sunday School teacher for a big and active class of youngsters in my church. Requests for me to share inspiration from my study with a local nursing home in my community opened the way to an invitation to become a lecturer of Christian Science. When it came around again to application time for the Normal class, I felt the mental prod to apply. I just knew that for this class it would be my turn. Again, after the lengthy and thorough application process, I received a letter indicating “not this time.” If I thought the first “no” was rough, the second one felt worse. Without realizing it, my second application had become to me something of a litmus test for the approval of others. “Now am I good enough?” was a latent, undermining question poisoning my thought.  As experience tells us, while sadness and disappointment really stink, throw anger into that mix and the feelings are infinitely worse. And I was angry – at God for dangling this opportunity under my nose and not letting me do it. (Oh, what a miserable, limited concept of the infinite Love that is the true God, I suffered from. ) I was angry at those who had worked with me so painstakingly during the application process. Why did they make me feel so appreciated and valued, when the plan was to deny me what I wanted to do? I was angry at myself. Who did I think I was to ask to teach? Why did I put myself through all this again, knowing the risks and how hard it was for me to be rejected? To come out of the deep depression that settled on me following this disappointment, I had to dump the anger. It didn’t happen all at once, but through persistently continuing with the good habits I had already developed of praying for me daily to be kept from sin; of growing my understanding of the true nature of God and man through my regular study of the Bible and Science and Health; of serving in church in the roles that were offered to me; of developing further my practice of Christian healing for others; the anger and disappointment were replaced by spiritual growth. Out of the ashes of the second disappointment came a new opportunity – to address the annual meeting of an Association of Pupils of a Christian Science teacher who had passed on. I loved the opportunity to teach that came through this invitation. It confirmed everything I longed to do. It was fun - and hard work. And after this first invitation was fulfilled, others quickly followed. My calendar began filling with annual opportunities to work with Pupil’s Associations for many years to come.  But as satisfying as this was, my eye was still on that next Normal class. Surely THAT one was mine. So when the time came around again, I applied. This time little interest was shown in my application. The process seemed less involved. I counted that as meaning that I was a shoo-in. (Ever the positive thinker!) I figured, God knows I am ready now. And I really think I was, but I was not to be in that class. My husband passed on suddenly two months before the start date. Around the same time, I received the same letter. I was disappointed to not be invited, but I was so occupied with dealing with the emotions of my husband’s passing, as well as the life-details that demanded my attention, that one more shock over not being invited to Normal class seemed that – just one more shock. Three years later my outlook was much more humble than it had been before. I applied for the Normal class, but fulfilling my role as a single mom of a teenage daughter was a higher priority. While I still felt called to teach, the urgency and push I had felt before were no longer there. So although I was disappointed to not be in the class that year – yes, the answer was again a no – I wasn’t terribly knocked over by the news. I felt something new and good was in store for me. I had hoped it was teaching, but I was no longer using the application process as a test of my worth. I knew I was loved and valued by God and by others. I loved and valued myself. I was now open to new opportunities in whatever form they should be presented. I felt God’s guidance and protection as I moved forward with my life.  The month following that Normal class I was invited to take a trip to Paris with a friend and everything changed for me. (Listen to an eleven minute podcast that fills you in on those details.) During the next three years there were many new and unexpected developments. I married a Frenchman. I moved to France. I started learning a new language. When it came time again to apply for the class, I honestly didn’t feel called by God to do it. I was willing to teach - the desire was still apparent - but I didn’t see how it would be possible. If I became a teacher in France, my language skills weren’t up where they would need to be. So for the first time in 12 years, I didn’t apply. Then after three more years, I felt the call, did apply, and was accepted into the Normal class. Today, the whole long story seems a bit dream-like. I have memories of the disappointment and of feelings of being blocked, but the angst has been completely replaced with an overview perspective of steady development and progress that really define those years. I could never have foreseen at the time of the first, second, third and fourth applications – and especially not during the one that I skipped – that my niche for fulfilling the deep desire to teach would include a foreign country and another language. I am not the same teacher I might have been otherwise. And now I wouldn’t have it any other way. A great lesson for me has been to understand that our true niche isn’t a destination. It’s our place in infinity. We aren’t en route to that place. It is included in our very identity as the present and operational reflection of God. Everything developing in me to be doing what I now do was always mine, always with me, in me. Intuition discerned the capacity to teach. Deep desire and the nurturing of my spirituality through prayer and study erased all traces of disappointment and the personal ambition it pointed to, and opened the way to the revelation, one by one, of the divine qualities of patience, persistence, focus, unflagging faith, spiritual energy, renewal, resilience, self-worth, confidence, obedience, and humility that are inherent in every child of God, and essential to the expression of each one’s unique role in the universe.  Ultimately, no one will miss the boat. We include our niche. And while its discovery in us may seem to occur in time, that is just a human perspective of unfolding good. I think this human perspective is what Mary Baker Eddy was referring to when she gave this sage advice: “We must resign with good grace what we are denied, and press on with what we are, for we cannot do more than we are nor understand what is not ripening in us. To do good to all because we love all, and to use in God’s service the one talent that we all have, is our only means of adding to that talent and the best way to silence a deep discontent with our shortcomings.”
But looking beyond the human to the divine and present fact of our place in eternity, she continued, “Christian Science is at length learned to be no miserable piece of ideal legerdemain, by which we poor mortals expect to live and die, but a deep-drawn breath fresh from God, by whom and in whom man lives, moves, and has deathless being” (First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany). 10/13/2014 1 Comment Latest news hot off the press OK, that could be a misleading title. Or not. Sometimes in order to report on the news, we need to get out and see, and do, and be - that is, to engage with the events making news. That is what I am up to now - engaging with good, good and more good. And the list of future blog subjects is growing by the minute. Stay tuned.
While I am off 'taking care of business" for another week or so, I can offer you some interesting reading in case you have missed these recently published articles and blog post.  Have you ever tried and abandoned a puzzle, wondering who on earth is smart enough to figure it out? Have you ever experienced inspiration-envy, or thought, Why can’t I heal (or be healed) like others? Well, question and envy no more. You can take ownership of intelligence, logic, inspiration and healing power. Maud Fischer, CS, a colleague who writes a Christian Science blog in French, had a great post yesterday. Here is a partial translation. She wrote: 2 + 2 = fish 3 + 3 = eight 7 +7 = triangle “Annoying, right? This is illogical and incomprehensible. It means nothing, so finally I drop it ... And yet it is stated in this small puzzle shared on Facebook that ‘smart people can find the answer.’ “Oh! I go back, I ponder, and finally I think that there necessarily has to be a solution because other people have obviously found the answer. “We mustn’t abandon the logic of calculation, I thought. So I added the letters of the words and I crossed the totals, all in vain. Finally, I tried to accept that there may be a different logic. And bingo! It was obvious. It must be understood in terms of graphics! “That's it. Do you see it, too? “I presented the puzzle to two of my girls (14 and 11.) At first they were unanimous in saying that they did not understand. The elder tried, then she abandoned it. I urged her sister to continue to try. In less than three seconds she replied, ‘Oh it’s easy. You turn one of the sevens backward, put them together and it's a triangle.’ She saw that the two other statements follow the same logic...” (Maud’s full post focuses on the child-like thought that is open to the unconventional and not locked into the same old reasoning patterns. You can put her text into Google translate to read it. It is great.) I have seen these puzzles before, and I admit, I tend to abandon them. But on those occasions when I do see the logic, or when someone points it out to me, I am thrilled to have walked into a whole new and crisper way of looking at things. Her experience and the little girl’s explanation made the answer so clear to me. I found myself immediately taking the logic further: 1 + 1 = eleven 4 + 4 = tree 5 + 5 = vase 11 + 11 = birthday candles  Fun! But it also brought out the point that although I didn’t personally figure the puzzle out, by witnessing another’s clear vision I could take ownership of the logic and apply it myself to equations. A client once asked me if I had ever witnessed a healing of a certain condition through Christian Science treatment. I replied that I had and recounted the experience in great detail. When our conversation finished, I began to give the Christian Science treatment through prayer that the patient asked of me. As I prayed, I was suddenly so embarrassed to realize that I had unintentionally lied. I hadn’t personally had a patient healed of that condition. I had recently read a detailed account of such a healing in a periodical that puts on record documented and verified cases of Christian Science healing. “Oh, dear,” I thought. “I have to correct this.” Then I considered to what degree I had taken ownership of the experience. Through documenting the account, the one who experienced it had invited me and all other readers into the laboratory of human experience to witness the divine phenomenon of spiritual healing. By consenting to the logic and applying it to my own cases, I had made that experience fully my own.
What wonderful things I have witnessed. I now realize that insofar as I consent to the evidence of healing and the spiritual reasoning through prayer that produces it, no matter how or where I witness it, it is a part of me. Later, I shared my mistake with the client, but not without the explanation of the right we have to take possession of healing and inspiration wherever we find them, even if we are only indirectly involved as a witness. Don’t fear that inspiration or healing is passing you by when you hear of others’ experiences with healing prayer. In a poem, Christian Science discoverer Mary Baker Eddy wrote that God “will lift the shade of gloom, and for you make radiant room midst the glories of one endless day.” (Communion Hymn, Poems, p.75) To me, that is an open invitation to enter the laboratory of Christian Science where the Christ – the everpresent power of God as Love - welcomes each of us to witness and experience the inspiration and logic of divine healing. Not a subscriber and want to be?
Easy. Just sign up in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE FIND LINKS TO MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT LISTEN TO A COLLECTION OF MY "YOUR DAILY LIFT" 2-MINUTE PODCASTS 10/2/2014 12 Comments Are you stuck? When everything is at a standstill and you feel like you are getting nowhere fast, what can you do? My recent experience can serve as a modern day parable explaining the divine law of movement and progress and how you can experience it. Nearing our destination after a long day on the road, my husband and I passed a sign that indicated the way was smooth and clear through the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel. But a couple of miles further along we entered what appeared to be an endless parking lot. As far as the eye could see, cars weren’t slowed; they were stopped and turned completely off. Disappointed, we settled in for the long wait that occurs when an unseen accident or construction blocks all lanes of traffic. I began to pray. I was really tired and wanted to get to our hotel. But it seemed like this was going to be one of those exercises in endurance while a mess is cleaned up. I thought I should pray for patience and to maintain a cheery mood in the car. But what I find interesting about prayer: when we release the control and let the divine Mind unfold His ideas from perfect Cause to perfect effect, we are sometimes steered into an entirely different channel of thought than we first suppose.  I began my prayer by affirming that the Mind that is God is the source of all the movement in the universe. As I plunged deeper into the implications of this spiritual truth, I questioned if a bottleneck has any actual place, power or reality. It didn’t fit. Why should I cope with something that couldn’t actually be? Suddenly my prayer was off like a rocket taking me into the divine facts of the order, flow and perfect position of all God’s ideas in His spiritual universe. The divine and spiritual isn’t something afar off. It’s not an intellectual thing – if by that we mean “in our heads.” It is the present reality that we as God’s spiritual creation can witness to right where we are. Instead of praying to resolve the potential aftereffects of an accident, or the interruptions in all these people’s schedules resulting from other delays, I saw that blockage of any kind isn’t real. It isn’t to be patiently put up with. The divine Mind overrules any material cause and its bad effects through the divine law of Mind – the law which maintains the order, flow and perfect position of all of Mind’s ideas.  Now, for the cool thing: We had been sitting with the car turned off for about three minutes. Suddenly, the cars in front of us started up and moved. I don’t mean moved, as in inched forward. When we turned our car on, we took off from 0 to 55 mph immediately and never slowed again. As we approached the tunnel and passed through, there was no sign of accident, construction, traffic signal, or anything that could provide a material cause for a prolonged stop. Under the marginal heading “Causation mental,” Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures explains how understanding the Science of cause and effect as originating in Mind breaks logjams. It says, “Christian Science explains all cause and effect as mental, not physical. It lifts the veil of mystery from Soul and body. It shows the scientific relation of man to God, disentangles the interlaced ambiguities of being, and sets free the imprisoned thought. In divine Science, the universe, including man, is spiritual, harmonious, and eternal.” (p.227)  Further on, Mary Baker Eddy broadens the discussion to how the divine Mind as the Principle, or lawgiver, doesn’t cope with the illusion of blockage in the form of sin, sickness or death, but rests absolutely on a spiritual understanding of the facts of Mind. She wrote, “Mind is the source of all movement, and there is no inertia to retard or check its perpetual and harmonious action. Mind is the same Life, Love, and wisdom ‘yesterday, and to-day, and forever.’ Matter and its effects — sin, sickness, and death — are states of mortal mind which act, react, and then come to a stop. They are not facts of Mind. They are not ideas, but illusions. Principle is absolute. It admits of no error, but rests upon understanding.” (p. 283) We don’t need to pray to unblock what can never be blocked, or to cope with what has no true spiritual cause. The order and flow of divine good is unstoppable for us as Mind's creation. Learn about the divine Mind. Trust it. In the word's of John's gospel, "Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." New International Version Not a subscriber and want to be?
Easy. Just sign up in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE FIND LINKS TO MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT LISTEN TO A COLLECTION OF MY "YOUR DAILY LIFT" 2-MINUTE PODCASTS 10/1/2014 6 Comments Strength, clarity and grace If you find yourself in a muddle over something you have been praying over, take heart. Hymn 365 in the Christian Science Hymnal explains, “If the sorrows of thy case seem peculiar still to thee, God has promised needful grace: As thy days thy strength shall be.” Sometimes what is needed for a fresh approach is to remember that there are no carry-overs of evil from one day to the next. Christ Jesus said, “Take therefore no thought for the morrow: for the morrow shall take thought for the things of itself. Sufficient unto the day is the evil thereof.” Matthew 6:34. Looking at that statement in the light of hymn 365, we can say, “The sufficient truth and divine strength (the needful grace that God gives) meets all claims of evil each day. Stop worrying.” Each day God gives you - not old cases - but new strength, clarity and grace. Don’t fret or fear. "As thy days thy strength shall be." There is no better or stronger healer on earth than the one that God through His healing Christ is causing you to be right now. Philippians 4:13: New International Version I can do all this through him who gives me strength. New Living Translation For I can do everything through Christ, who gives me strength. English Standard Version I can do all things through him who strengthens me. New American Standard Bible I can do all things through Him who strengthens me. King James Bible I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. Holman Christian Standard Bible I am able to do all things through Him who strengthens me. International Standard Version I can do all things through him who strengthens me. NET Bible I am able to do all things through the one who strengthens me. Aramaic Bible in Plain English Because I master all things by The Messiah who empowers me. GOD'S WORD® Translation I can do everything through Christ who strengthens me. Jubilee Bible 2000 I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. King James 2000 Bible I can do all things through Christ who strengthens me. American King James Version I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me. American Standard Version I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me. Douay-Rheims Bible I can do all these things in him who strengtheneth me. Darby Bible Translation I have strength for all things in him that gives me power. English Revised Version I can do all things in him that strengtheneth me. Webster's Bible Translation I can do all things through Christ who strengtheneth me. Weymouth New Testament I have strength for anything through Him who gives me power. World English Bible I can do all things through Christ, who strengthens me. Young's Literal Translation For all things I have strength, in Christ's strengthening me; Not a subscriber and want to be? Easy. Just sign up in the sidebar. You may also wish to: VISIT MY WEBSITE HOME PAGE FIND LINKS TO MY OTHER PUBLISHED CONTENT LISTEN TO A COLLECTION OF MY "YOUR DAILY LIFT" 2-MINUTE PODCASTS |
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I have practiced Christian Science professionally in some form since 1979. But my journey with Christian Science started in a Sunday school where as a young child I was taught the Scriptures and some simple basics of Jesus' method of scientific Christian healing. A significant experience at the age of twelve opened my eyes to the great potential of this practice. After impaling my foot on a nail, I prayed the way I had learned in Sunday school. Within moments the pain stopped and healing began. By the next morning the wound had disappeared completely. Having experienced the great potential of Christian Science, there would be no turning back. |
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© 2011-2024 Michelle Boccanfuso Nanouche, CSB. All rights reserved. Pages updated July 1, 2024.