Starting a New Life

The time to start a new life is now. And you don't have to travel across continents to do it. You can start right where you are, today.

I made that great discovery when I needed help with some problems. I was restless, prayerless, and living a life without God in it. That was when I picked up a gift copy of a book by Mary Baker Eddy that had been in my home for seven years-Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Why this book? Because I had heard of people being healed as a result of reading it.

When I was a small child, my grandmother was healed of rheumatism and poor health through reading Science and Health. She lived for another forty years after that, actively. A friend who had had three miscarriages was healed through reading it, and gave birth to two healthy sons.

Because I wondered if it could help me, I started reading it. I discovered that to be healed meant to be made whole. I learned that Christian Science, the law of God discovered by Mrs. Eddy, teaches of our salvation from sin, sickness, and even from death. Well, wouldn't all that be the start of a new life? I got so engrossed in reading that my anxieties began to fall away.

If we are willing to change our thinking, Christian Science gives new hope and direction. I once referred to the Bible, to St. John's words, "I saw a new heaven and a new earth: for the first heaven and the first earth were passed away; and there was no more sea" (Revelation 21:1). I asked myself, "Why did John say new?" Because he had found a new way of seeing, and he was experiencing a vision of spiritual reality that was before unknown to him. It was apparently fresh, different from the old view. I believe he was seeing the eternal nature of God's creation, in all its perfection and glory.

So how can we see this new view and experience the goodness that the Bible promises? Science and Health points us in the direction of Christ Jesus, and to what he said and did. He represented the ideals of sound living and showed that God has an indestructible relationship to His children. Jesus showed us all how to love God supremely and how to love our neighbors as ourselves.

At the beginning of his ministry, Jesus commanded his followers "Repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand" (Matthew 4:17). Here repent means to change one's thinking in order to find evidence of heaven right where we are. Science and Health has terms for heaven such as: "a divine state of Mind," "harmony," and "bliss." These are experienced through prayer, sacred communion between God and man. To begin finding heaven on earth, Christian Science explains, receptivity and obedience to the voice of God are helpful; a willingness to leave old ways for new ways is essential. It is in prayer that the acknowledgment of God as supreme brings inspiration. It is in listening for God's messages that we find ourselves perfect in His sight and able to think more spiritually.

After Jesus was crucified and resurrected, following his life of healing and redeeming, his disciples went back to their old trade of fishing. One night they worked and worked and caught nothing. Then they encountered Jesus on the shore of the Sea of Galilee. This was to be a beginning for them, because they started new lives -- repented -- at that time. Science and Health says: "Convinced of the fruitlessness of their toil in the dark and wakened by their Master's voice, they changed their methods, turned away from material things, and cast their net on the right side. Discerning Christ, Truth, anew on the shore of time, they were enabled to rise somewhat from mortal sensuousness, or the burial of mind in matter, into newness of life as Spirit" (p. 35). After this the disciples undertook the work of healing the sick, destroying sin, and saving people from death, just as Jesus had taught them to do.

As for me, my life has never been the same again since I began studying Christian Science. I began to find resolutions to my problems and direction in my life. I found myself becoming new, in thought and experience. And so can you.

Other articles on Christian Science can be found in the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine.