'It is well'

When a woman laid the apparently lifeless body of her young child on a bed in her home, it wasn't unusual for her to turn to God for comfort. Most God-loving people could understand that. When she sought the support of an individual whom she considered to be a ''man of God,'' that surely was not unusual either. What might, however, have been considered very unusual was her reply to the man. Upon being questioned about the well-being of her household, including the child, she replied, ''It is well.'' n1

n1 II Kings 4:26.

Did the woman not love her son? Was she mad with grief? Down through the ages soars her amazing reply: It is well!

Amazing to whom? To worldly thinkers. To a state of thought believing that evidence before the material senses constitutes all there is to know or experience. But didn't the woman glimpse, or sense, a different standpoint, perhaps a spiritual one? She trusted in divine power as expressed through Elisha , and her son lived.

When Christ Jesus healed the sick and raised the dead, he showed that a true perception of being is not confined to materiality, to laws of matter, to what a material sense of existence is asserting. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes: ''Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick.'' n2

n2 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 476-477.

We refer to that which perceives as mind, and we've been used to thinking that each individual has a private mind, a private way of viewing reality. But if God is infinite, divine intelligence and there's just one God, there must be just one real Mind. And because man is God's likeness, our true perceptions come from this Mind.

As we identify ourselves spiritually, and through prayer and purification of thought come into harmony with this one divine source, we see things differently. We view ourselves and others more from a spiritual, immortal standpoint than from a mortal, limited one.

This was brought home to me some time ago when one of our children became ill at a summer cottage. As I turned to the Bible for help, I read a passage that represents God as saying, ''Ask me of things to come concerning my sons, and concerning the work of my hands command ye me.'' n3

n3 Isaiah 45:11.

I began asking myself how God, loving Mind, was seeing this child, and gradually realized that perfect Mind could perceive only spiritual perfection. Through deep prayer I changed my standpoint from the mortal to the immortal, from an earthly, material sense of man's identity to an uplifted, spiritual view. It wasn't easy, but a sustained effort finally resulted in a feeling of peace, which I wouldn't have thought possible under the circumstances. I prayed my way to sleep that night, still endeavoring to conceive of my son as spiritual and whole, and in the morning the child was completely well.

To God, Spirit, all is always well. Divine Mind perceives its ''very good,'' n4 exquisite creation. As we yield to this truth through prayer and humble trust in God, our viewpoint changes. We're finally able to say, in all truthfulness, ''It is well.''

n4 See Genesis 1:31.

Just as an individual who's dreaming believes that a certain set of dream conditions constitutes reality, so mortals believe that material images make up real existence. But the sleeping, dreaming person eventually wakes up to a new set of conditions. Through prayer we awaken spiritually to the harmony established by God, and thereby find healing.''It is well'' isn't unusual. It's normal. DAILY BIBLE VERSE I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, from whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the Lord, which made heaven and earth. He will not suffer thy foot to be moved: he that keepeth thee will not slumber. Behold, he that is thy keeper: the Lord is thy shade upon thy right hand. The sun shall not smite thee by day, nor the moon by night. The Lord shall preserve thee from all evil: he shall preserve thy soul. The Lord shall preserve thy going out and thy coming in from this time forth, and even for evermore. Psalm 121