I was junior in college. I was failing a class in my major area of study. I knew that if I did not get a good grade on my final, I would need to repeat the class.
Our final was a take-home open book exam. What a relief! This should be easy, I thought. However, when I started doing the research to answer the three exam questions, I couldn’t come up with anything useful.
As the night wore on, there still was no answer. I realized that prayer was the only possible solution. Two verses from the Bible came to me: The first was, “Fear thou not; for I am with thee” (Isa .41:10). The second was, “And it shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear.” (Isa. 65:24) Didn’t that mean that God, infinite Mind, already knew the answer?
I remembered a Christian Science practitioner telling me that the same Mind that made the questions, also made the answers to those questions. My intelligence was not material, but spiritual. I did reflect God, infinite, divine Mind, and Mind would reveal to me what I needed to know about these three questions. During the night I researched my questions in the material from my class.
All night long I continued to pray, affirming over and over that I was taking this test for the glory of God. I kept affirming my oneness with Him. I gave thanks that I was intelligent, that I could comprehend this material. Even though I didn’t have an answer to this problem, I prayed that something would be revealed.
By 6:30 am, there was still no answer. I needed to turn in my test by 7:00 am. During that final hour, a few ideas repeatedly occurred to me, but I squelched them and resisted writing it down; surely they weren’t the right answers. Since the test was due in a few minutes, and no other answer came to mind, I frantically scribbled three sketchy answers to the three questions.
I felt uneasy about how my final exam would turn out. When I worried about repeating the class, I knew that I had to trust God. Since He had given me an answer, it had to be sufficient. To my surprise, I received a “B” on the final, so I finished the class with a grade of “C”! The answers I scribbled on the exam were the right answers. I celebrated the fact that I had raised my grade by trusting that God already knew the answer, as He had promised in the Bible.
Thursday, March 15, 2007
Wednesday, March 14, 2007
Healing the effects of War
What can we do to support our troops coming home from the war in Iraq? According to an article in the Los Angeles Times Friday May 16, 2006 said “A Journal of the American Medical Assn. study published in March found that more than a third of troops who served in Iraq sought help for mental problems within a year of returning home” These brave young men and women deserve a better fate after risking their life to defend the freedoms of others.
As a Christian Scientist I cannot sit back and accept this verdict about these brave soldiers. I know that God is love and is always caring for each and every child. The evils of war are not from God and they cannot leave permanent damage to man. War is a lie. God never made it and man cannot suffer from it. The scars of war cannot repeat themselves. Since God is Mind man reflects that Mind. Evil has no power. It cannot attach itself to man.
The Bible tells us “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”(Isa. 66:13) Just like God comforted His people years ago He is continuing to comfort and heal His children now. Right this very minute love is with these solders. It is with them when they are awake and when they sleep. Man cannot be bullied by the nightmares of the past. Since they never happened to God they can never happen to His idea man.
When I came back from Vietnam I had many issues to be healed. Although I did not see hand to hand combat I still was very distressed over my experience there. I felt I was a victim of my circumstances. A dear friend of my family which I have always claimed as my adopted aunt gave me much comfort in my time of need. For probably a week or more she spent hours with me right into the night affirming my relationship with God. She praised me for serving my country. She told me I could not suffer for doing right. God is love and God protected me while I was there. Evil no matter what it calls itself is a liar and the father of it. Since God is love then love is more powerful than hate. I was the child of God before I went to Vietnam and I was still the child of God. This experience was like a bad nightmare and I could awake out of it. I was at one with God and not at one with that nightmare. Since I was at one with God this meant that I was at one with His thoughts such as peace, calmness, happiness, and holiness. During that week, I began to focus my thoughts on the power of God’s love rather than the episodes of my Vietnam experience. This recognition of the power of God’s love brought healing.
Over the years I have learned what Mrs. Eddy says of the past. “It is well to know, dear reader, that our material, mortal history is but the record of dreams, not of man's real existence, and the dream has no place in the Science of being. (Ret. 21:13-15)
Our dear ones coming back from the war can find that their experience as well was a dream and not a reality. They can claim their oneness with God and deny the existence of any other power and any other experience. God is the only power the only presence and the only reality. Man is loved. He has always been loved and always will be loved.
We are not alone fighting with our nightmares of the past. God is with us raising our thought above the nightmare into the ever present oneness with Him. Right now we have the ability to elevate our thinking above the nightmare because we know the nightmare was and always will be a lie about God’s creation. In God’s creation all is in harmony and all is peace. We have a right to claim this peace for ourselves or for our loved ones right this very minute.
Welcome home dear heroes. Welcome home not to the nightmares of the past but of the calmness of the present. You are the beloved of the Lord and don’t you forget it. Your consciousness is filled only with the thoughts from God because that is all that really exists in God’s kingdom where you have always reigned. “Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven; stranger, thou art the guest of God.”(Science and Health with Key to the scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p.254:31-32)
As a Christian Scientist I cannot sit back and accept this verdict about these brave soldiers. I know that God is love and is always caring for each and every child. The evils of war are not from God and they cannot leave permanent damage to man. War is a lie. God never made it and man cannot suffer from it. The scars of war cannot repeat themselves. Since God is Mind man reflects that Mind. Evil has no power. It cannot attach itself to man.
The Bible tells us “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you; and ye shall be comforted in Jerusalem.”(Isa. 66:13) Just like God comforted His people years ago He is continuing to comfort and heal His children now. Right this very minute love is with these solders. It is with them when they are awake and when they sleep. Man cannot be bullied by the nightmares of the past. Since they never happened to God they can never happen to His idea man.
When I came back from Vietnam I had many issues to be healed. Although I did not see hand to hand combat I still was very distressed over my experience there. I felt I was a victim of my circumstances. A dear friend of my family which I have always claimed as my adopted aunt gave me much comfort in my time of need. For probably a week or more she spent hours with me right into the night affirming my relationship with God. She praised me for serving my country. She told me I could not suffer for doing right. God is love and God protected me while I was there. Evil no matter what it calls itself is a liar and the father of it. Since God is love then love is more powerful than hate. I was the child of God before I went to Vietnam and I was still the child of God. This experience was like a bad nightmare and I could awake out of it. I was at one with God and not at one with that nightmare. Since I was at one with God this meant that I was at one with His thoughts such as peace, calmness, happiness, and holiness. During that week, I began to focus my thoughts on the power of God’s love rather than the episodes of my Vietnam experience. This recognition of the power of God’s love brought healing.
Over the years I have learned what Mrs. Eddy says of the past. “It is well to know, dear reader, that our material, mortal history is but the record of dreams, not of man's real existence, and the dream has no place in the Science of being. (Ret. 21:13-15)
Our dear ones coming back from the war can find that their experience as well was a dream and not a reality. They can claim their oneness with God and deny the existence of any other power and any other experience. God is the only power the only presence and the only reality. Man is loved. He has always been loved and always will be loved.
We are not alone fighting with our nightmares of the past. God is with us raising our thought above the nightmare into the ever present oneness with Him. Right now we have the ability to elevate our thinking above the nightmare because we know the nightmare was and always will be a lie about God’s creation. In God’s creation all is in harmony and all is peace. We have a right to claim this peace for ourselves or for our loved ones right this very minute.
Welcome home dear heroes. Welcome home not to the nightmares of the past but of the calmness of the present. You are the beloved of the Lord and don’t you forget it. Your consciousness is filled only with the thoughts from God because that is all that really exists in God’s kingdom where you have always reigned. “Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven; stranger, thou art the guest of God.”(Science and Health with Key to the scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p.254:31-32)
Monday, March 12, 2007
The Important Points of Christian Science
1. As adherents of Truth, we take the inspired Word of the Bible as our sufficient guide to eternal Life.
2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness.
3. We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts.
4. We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death.
5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eternal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter.
6. And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy page 497
2. We acknowledge and adore one supreme and infinite God. We acknowledge His Son, one Christ; the Holy Ghost or divine Comforter; and man in God's image and likeness.
3. We acknowledge God's forgiveness of sin in the destruction of sin and the spiritual understanding that casts out evil as unreal. But the belief in sin is punished so long as the belief lasts.
4. We acknowledge Jesus' atonement as the evidence of divine, efficacious Love, unfolding man's unity with God through Christ Jesus the Way-shower; and we acknowledge that man is saved through Christ, through Truth, Life, and Love as demonstrated by the Galilean Prophet in healing the sick and overcoming sin and death.
5. We acknowledge that the crucifixion of Jesus and his resurrection served to uplift faith to understand eternal Life, even the allness of Soul, Spirit, and the nothingness of matter.
6. And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure.
from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures
by Mary Baker Eddy page 497
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Stopping domestic abuse through prayer
We were renting a little apartment for the weekend in a college community in San Diego. One night, I was awakened by a couple of college kids that were yelling at each other right outside our window which was near an alley way. My first thought was can’t they do their screaming somewhere else, I am trying to sleep. They were very drunk like many of the college kids in that community. As I looked out the window, I saw the boy was pushing the girl and was very angry. I heard him yell at the girl that he was going to beat her up. The girl yelled back at him and told him to stop. She tried to plead with him not to hit her. The thought came to me you want to be a healer now is your chance to put your prayers into action.
The first thing I did was affirm that right there in that alley way that all that was going on was God and His complete harmony. I saw that the picture of man that I was seeing was a lie and I did not need to be impressed by it. Man I knew was the child of God and was given dominion. God’s child is not abusive but kind and loving. Alcohol was not a God and man did not need to fall down and worship it. I thought of what Mary Baker Eddy says in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “There is no power apart from God. Omnipotence has all-power, and to acknowledge any other power is to dishonor God.”(228:25-27) Alcohol then had no power to make man drunk or to cause him to be drunk and disorderly. I refused to believe that man was out of control. Since God is always in control His idea must be in control. God good is the all and the only there is nothing else.
Within about 15 minutes or so the couple stopped yelling and calmed down. They both left calmly in separate directions. A few months later I was talking to a woman who lived in the apartment in which I stayed that weekend. She said that for several weeks many of the residences of that apartment building had heard this couple fighting night after night. There had been a lot abusive behavior going on. However, since that night when I prayed, they have not heard any yelling or evidence of abusive behavior.
This incident proved to me that disorderly behavior is not the natural state of man. Man as the child of God can act only the way God created him loving, gentle, and kind. Since God created man do be this way we should expect nothing else.
The Bible says, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.” (Ps. 8:4-5) This concept of man is a much different one then that is often presented to us. However it is the correct one. It was the way Jesus viewed man. Jesus never saw a sick or a sinning man. He saw man the way God created him perfect and whole. Everywhere he went the sick and the sinful responded to his prayer. Wherever Jesus was the community was certainly blessed and healed.
Our community needs us right this very minute it needs our prayers. It needs our unselfishness. We can pray for the community and we can expect results. Our community is what we see of it. We can either view it full of crime and restlessness or we can see it like Jesus did peaceful and tranquil. It is up to us and we can start right this very moment.
The first thing I did was affirm that right there in that alley way that all that was going on was God and His complete harmony. I saw that the picture of man that I was seeing was a lie and I did not need to be impressed by it. Man I knew was the child of God and was given dominion. God’s child is not abusive but kind and loving. Alcohol was not a God and man did not need to fall down and worship it. I thought of what Mary Baker Eddy says in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “There is no power apart from God. Omnipotence has all-power, and to acknowledge any other power is to dishonor God.”(228:25-27) Alcohol then had no power to make man drunk or to cause him to be drunk and disorderly. I refused to believe that man was out of control. Since God is always in control His idea must be in control. God good is the all and the only there is nothing else.
Within about 15 minutes or so the couple stopped yelling and calmed down. They both left calmly in separate directions. A few months later I was talking to a woman who lived in the apartment in which I stayed that weekend. She said that for several weeks many of the residences of that apartment building had heard this couple fighting night after night. There had been a lot abusive behavior going on. However, since that night when I prayed, they have not heard any yelling or evidence of abusive behavior.
This incident proved to me that disorderly behavior is not the natural state of man. Man as the child of God can act only the way God created him loving, gentle, and kind. Since God created man do be this way we should expect nothing else.
The Bible says, What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made him a little lower than the angels, and hast crowned him with glory and honour.” (Ps. 8:4-5) This concept of man is a much different one then that is often presented to us. However it is the correct one. It was the way Jesus viewed man. Jesus never saw a sick or a sinning man. He saw man the way God created him perfect and whole. Everywhere he went the sick and the sinful responded to his prayer. Wherever Jesus was the community was certainly blessed and healed.
Our community needs us right this very minute it needs our prayers. It needs our unselfishness. We can pray for the community and we can expect results. Our community is what we see of it. We can either view it full of crime and restlessness or we can see it like Jesus did peaceful and tranquil. It is up to us and we can start right this very moment.
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