It's Not Where We Live...

        ...it's what we think.  We here in Tennessee have, and are having, a glorious fall season.  The air is so crisp and refreshing with the bluest, cleanest skies. However, far too many people feel they must suffer through autumn with allergies.  Instead of enjoying hiking, planting flowers for spring, raking leaves, mowing the lawn, activities are nearly shut down for the time being.

        Over and over I'm hearing individuals say, "I've tried every known remedy and nothing clears it up.  I'll just have to live with it." No, no one just has to live with suffering. My hope is that someone  in need of freedom from depleted health may come across my blog and be helped.

        Just yesterday, a worker I know at the local post office has decided the problem lies in living under the shadow of the Great Smoky Mountains here in East Tennessee, in the valley as it is known.  If only she could move to another state, all would be dandy.
But would it be? Not as I see and understand it.

        It isn't where you and I reside; it's what we are thinking that tells the tale, that determines our health and freedom.  Or our needless suffering and restriction.

        Christ Jesus emphasized the effect of what we entertain in thought.  He said:  "Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man...Those things which proceed out of the mouth come forth from the heart."  (Matthew 15:ll)

        When one learns that what he's thinking affects every aspect of his life, he sees the necessity of replacing fearful, sickly thoughts with spiritual truths that uplift, transform, and keep one healthy.  He sees the importance of conforming to the Christly standard Jesus established for all of us.  No matter what others may be falsely believing about allergies, no one has to abjectly surrender his health and harmony, but may instead exercise God-given power over suffering.

        Because you and I are actually the reflection of infinite, harmonious Spirit, and we include only those qualities Spirit imparts--peace, health, dominion--the suffering and fear that may seem so real have no genuine power over us.  They are misconceptions, false beliefs, not actually God-created conditions we have to live with.  And being misconceptions, they can be corrected with the truth of man's inseparable relationship to God, of his uninterrupted well-being as God's reflection.  This truth frees one.

        Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures :  "Instruct the sick that they are not helpless victims, for if they will only accept Truth, they can resist disease and ward it off, as positively as they can the temptation to sin."  She continues further along, "The fact that Truth overcomes both disease and sin reassures depressed hope.  It imparts a healthy stimulus to the body, and regulates the system.  It increases or diminishes the action, as the case may require, better than any drug, alterative, or tonic."  (p. 420)

        No, it isn't where our physical bodies happen to be; it's where our thoughts dwell.  Our experience is actually mental.  And being so, we can exercise our God-given right to exchange false, material thinking for the Truth that Jesus promised would make us free.