My friend Jennifer, who lives in Arizona, shared the following healing with me, and I'm delighted to share it with you...
I wish to express my gratitude for an experience I had earlier this year. In late February I was confronted with a very uncomfortable physical situation that made it difficult to go about my daily tasks. I was extremely tired and sometimes in a great deal of pain. This went on for 2-3 weeks. The first week I wasn't even able to read or study. I had help for several days from a Christian Science Practitioner, and gradually was able to read and study by myself. When I realized that I had been healed, I also realized that for the first time in probably three years I have more strength, stamina, as well as joy. For some time I have been studying with the synonyms for God, especially Love. Friends have noticed how much more active I've been.
I'm very grateful for Mary Baker Eddy and her wonderful gift to the world of Christian Science.
Wednesday, June 28, 2017
Monday, June 26, 2017
God's Rightful Place
"I'm an atheist",
This acquaintance said.
And proud of it, it would seem.
Sad to hear for those
Of us who aren't.
Her life is not what it could be,
Things go awry,
Though she does try
To make things work.
How much better it would be
If she gave God His rightful place.
Eventually, perhaps soon,
She may change her tune,
Be willing at last to face
What awaits us all.
No one is ever so far away
From Him who is ever near,
Who loves us all, His very own,
That we can't change our course,
And to our loving Father give
What He richly deserves.
It is the smartest, the best,
The only way to live.
This acquaintance said.
And proud of it, it would seem.
Sad to hear for those
Of us who aren't.
Her life is not what it could be,
Things go awry,
Though she does try
To make things work.
How much better it would be
If she gave God His rightful place.
Eventually, perhaps soon,
She may change her tune,
Be willing at last to face
What awaits us all.
No one is ever so far away
From Him who is ever near,
Who loves us all, His very own,
That we can't change our course,
And to our loving Father give
What He richly deserves.
It is the smartest, the best,
The only way to live.
Saturday, June 17, 2017
O Glorious Solitude
How one can prefer society's noise
To solitude's tranquillity
Is more than I can comprehend,
I who would know Him better
Hear what He yearns to say.
How can such wondrous things,
Things that Jesus knew,
Open up heaven for us
While in a crowd of people;
People who talk when
They have nothing to say,
Who go on and on
And never know when to end?
It's indisputable --
Hearing our loving Father
And mindless garrulity
Are incompatible.
Give me a soulful quiet,
And possible a companion
(Or two or three of the
Furry and four-legged kind)
Who blend with blessed silence.
To solitude's tranquillity
Is more than I can comprehend,
I who would know Him better
Hear what He yearns to say.
How can such wondrous things,
Things that Jesus knew,
Open up heaven for us
While in a crowd of people;
People who talk when
They have nothing to say,
Who go on and on
And never know when to end?
It's indisputable --
Hearing our loving Father
And mindless garrulity
Are incompatible.
Give me a soulful quiet,
And possible a companion
(Or two or three of the
Furry and four-legged kind)
Who blend with blessed silence.
Why Put Up With Poor Health?
Why, when there is a way to combat poor health. And this without having to depend upon medication. That way is the healing power of Christianity that Christ Jesus practiced. His words, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free" point to the naturalness of healing from a purely metaphysical standpoint as he did. They point to unchanging divine law, which anyone can turn to with certainty.
Through the study of Christian Science, we're helped to see what that healing truth is, the truth found in the Bible's pages. There we learn that God is omnipotent and entirely good and that man is the image of God. As the likeness of his creator, man forever expresses the divine nature. And because God is Spirit, man is spiritual. To be sure, we appear to be merely flesh and bones and subject to suffering. But physicality isn't the actual or ultimate substance of our true being. Life in the flesh is a misconception of man, whose real identity as the image of God is incorporeal, untouched by debilitating physical conditions.
The growing understanding of man's spiritual nature has a purifying effect on the body. It awakens us to the everpresence of Christ, Truth--of the divine healing influence--and the body responds to this uplifting influence. Good health is then experienced.
Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "To ignore God as of little use in sickness is a mistake. Instead of thrusting Him aside in times of bodily trouble, and waiting for the hour of strength in which to acknowledge Him, we should learn that He can do all things for us in sickness as in health."
You and I have a God-given right not only to enjoy sound health but to recover it through spiritual means when it is threatened. Jesus has furnished us with a precedent, indicating that as we follow his example we can learn what God is and how to avail ourselves of His power.
The Bible is full of assurances of God's healing help. These are not empty promises. They come to life for us in clear-cut healing when we are equipped with practical knowledge of God's eternal law of harmony and of our relationship to Him. Empowered with the Christ understanding that a study of Christian Science brings, we can turn to God for every aspect of our well-being, including health, proving to our own satisfaction and joy, "The Lord will take away from thee all sickness."
Through the study of Christian Science, we're helped to see what that healing truth is, the truth found in the Bible's pages. There we learn that God is omnipotent and entirely good and that man is the image of God. As the likeness of his creator, man forever expresses the divine nature. And because God is Spirit, man is spiritual. To be sure, we appear to be merely flesh and bones and subject to suffering. But physicality isn't the actual or ultimate substance of our true being. Life in the flesh is a misconception of man, whose real identity as the image of God is incorporeal, untouched by debilitating physical conditions.
The growing understanding of man's spiritual nature has a purifying effect on the body. It awakens us to the everpresence of Christ, Truth--of the divine healing influence--and the body responds to this uplifting influence. Good health is then experienced.
Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered and founded Christian Science, writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "To ignore God as of little use in sickness is a mistake. Instead of thrusting Him aside in times of bodily trouble, and waiting for the hour of strength in which to acknowledge Him, we should learn that He can do all things for us in sickness as in health."
You and I have a God-given right not only to enjoy sound health but to recover it through spiritual means when it is threatened. Jesus has furnished us with a precedent, indicating that as we follow his example we can learn what God is and how to avail ourselves of His power.
The Bible is full of assurances of God's healing help. These are not empty promises. They come to life for us in clear-cut healing when we are equipped with practical knowledge of God's eternal law of harmony and of our relationship to Him. Empowered with the Christ understanding that a study of Christian Science brings, we can turn to God for every aspect of our well-being, including health, proving to our own satisfaction and joy, "The Lord will take away from thee all sickness."
Thursday, June 8, 2017
A Good Read
John Robert Howell
Genesis 1:27 states: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him." It is worth noting that the Hebrew word here for "man" is "Adam". In Genesis 12:7 man is said to be formed of the dust of the ground, and that "man" is also "adam". Around this fleshly axle theological material mindedness and slavish literalness to the text have been wrapped and tangled for over two millennia.
Without Mary Baker Eddy and her glorious Discovery, we might never have known better. Her inspired and inspiring definition on pages 475-477* of her Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is alone worth the cost of the volume. Students of Christian Science are thus blessed with a knowledge that the man of our heavenly Father God's creating is something much more glorious than the descendants of a couple of wardrobeless sinners cavorting about the Garden of Eden.
*Let me quote from some of the passages in Science and Health:
"Question. -- What is man?
"Answer. -- Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so unlike Spirit. Man is spiritual and perfect; and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique."
"The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not God's man. Mortals are the counterfeits of immortals. They are the children of the wicked one, or the one evil, which declares that man begins in dust or as a material embryo. In divine Science, God and the real man are inseparable as divine Principle and idea."
"When speaking God's children, not the children of men, Jesus said, 'The kingdom of God is within you;' that is, Truth and Love reign in the real man, showing that man in God's image is unfallen and eternal. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."
Genesis 1:27 states: "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him." It is worth noting that the Hebrew word here for "man" is "Adam". In Genesis 12:7 man is said to be formed of the dust of the ground, and that "man" is also "adam". Around this fleshly axle theological material mindedness and slavish literalness to the text have been wrapped and tangled for over two millennia.
Without Mary Baker Eddy and her glorious Discovery, we might never have known better. Her inspired and inspiring definition on pages 475-477* of her Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures is alone worth the cost of the volume. Students of Christian Science are thus blessed with a knowledge that the man of our heavenly Father God's creating is something much more glorious than the descendants of a couple of wardrobeless sinners cavorting about the Garden of Eden.
*Let me quote from some of the passages in Science and Health:
"Question. -- What is man?
"Answer. -- Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so unlike Spirit. Man is spiritual and perfect; and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique."
"The real man cannot depart from holiness, nor can God, by whom man is evolved, engender the capacity or freedom to sin. A mortal sinner is not God's man. Mortals are the counterfeits of immortals. They are the children of the wicked one, or the one evil, which declares that man begins in dust or as a material embryo. In divine Science, God and the real man are inseparable as divine Principle and idea."
"When speaking God's children, not the children of men, Jesus said, 'The kingdom of God is within you;' that is, Truth and Love reign in the real man, showing that man in God's image is unfallen and eternal. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy."
Monday, June 5, 2017
What Keeps Us Safe?
How to be safe
In times like these --
That is the question.
Surround ourselves with
A security detail?
Even this could fail.
No, there's one sure way.
Do what Christ Jesus did,
Look to God to keep us safe,
To see we're never harmed.
We're always armed
When we trust in Him.
For divine fact is,
God is with us
In everything we do.
Whether night or day,
At home or when away.
A faith-lighted thought this is --
That our loving Father
Is never apart from us.
Is this not glorious? --
That His care does surround,
His loving arms are around
All those we love,
Beside them always, above --
And not only ones we greet,
But those we may never meet.
God with us -- what a treasure.
Its comfort beyond all measure.
In times like these --
That is the question.
Surround ourselves with
A security detail?
Even this could fail.
No, there's one sure way.
Do what Christ Jesus did,
Look to God to keep us safe,
To see we're never harmed.
We're always armed
When we trust in Him.
For divine fact is,
God is with us
In everything we do.
Whether night or day,
At home or when away.
A faith-lighted thought this is --
That our loving Father
Is never apart from us.
Is this not glorious? --
That His care does surround,
His loving arms are around
All those we love,
Beside them always, above --
And not only ones we greet,
But those we may never meet.
God with us -- what a treasure.
Its comfort beyond all measure.
Thursday, June 1, 2017
A Life Made New
The New Testament has, among so many glorious statements, this one: "If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature: old things are passed away; behold, all things become new."
The young man who mows our lawn is a shining example of this. One Christmas recently, he and his wife came to have dinner with us. She had prepared special Mayan dishes and as we were finishing eating, this man said: "I'm not the man I once was." We were not expecting what came next. Apparently when he first came to this area, he went to bars, got in fights, drank heavily. And sadly, was arrested more than once.
Well, this one night in jail he happened to pick up a Spanish New Testament someone had left. He came across something Christ Jesus says, and his life was transformed then and there, he told us. Whatever the particular words were, he couldn't stop thinking about them. When he got out of jail, his life was new. Stopped drinking, got a job, began speaking to others about what Jesus' words had done for him. And every bit of time he can spare from his lawn care work, which he needs to pay his rent, etc. he gives to spreading the Good News, as he calls it.
We knew nothing of his former life, of course. And you could not find a more reliable, sweet, hard-working, honest person than he is. This just goes to show how transforming are our Master's teachings. Thank God for them.
The young man who mows our lawn is a shining example of this. One Christmas recently, he and his wife came to have dinner with us. She had prepared special Mayan dishes and as we were finishing eating, this man said: "I'm not the man I once was." We were not expecting what came next. Apparently when he first came to this area, he went to bars, got in fights, drank heavily. And sadly, was arrested more than once.
Well, this one night in jail he happened to pick up a Spanish New Testament someone had left. He came across something Christ Jesus says, and his life was transformed then and there, he told us. Whatever the particular words were, he couldn't stop thinking about them. When he got out of jail, his life was new. Stopped drinking, got a job, began speaking to others about what Jesus' words had done for him. And every bit of time he can spare from his lawn care work, which he needs to pay his rent, etc. he gives to spreading the Good News, as he calls it.
We knew nothing of his former life, of course. And you could not find a more reliable, sweet, hard-working, honest person than he is. This just goes to show how transforming are our Master's teachings. Thank God for them.
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