Nothing too far away from Love

Can any situation be too far away from God? Some years ago I had the opportunity to see that it cannot. I became very sure that nothing in the whole world was beyond the palpable presence of the love of God.

My mother, who lived in Brazil, had called me in Boston in great distress. She had been in bed for a week with a severe flu - feverish, lonely, sad. My first impulse was to go and take care of her, but that was beyond what I could do at that time. I agonized between my feeling of duty toward her and my commitments at home and at work.

Looking for solace, I remembered this line of a hymn called Consolator, the Latin word for Comforter: "Earth has no sorrow that Love cannot cure" (adapted from Thomas Moore and Thomas Hastings). What a relief! This told me that God's love is so spiritually concrete and pervasive that it knew no distance, had no spaces within its own being, in the whole world. Acknowledging this fact was like an irresistible healing agent. A couple of hours later, my mother was completely recovered. Although I was prepared to travel to her, there was no need.

The prayer that heals consists in listening to the voice that whispers to us about the true, healthy individuality of every man and woman. It is the voice of our higher nature, the image of Love. It uncovers the misconception and reveals that life is in fact spiritual. When we take refuge in the innermost part of our thought, we can hear the voice of Love.

Then we see that it is not that God merely loves us. Rather, God is Love, with a capital L. And God's love is not something coming from a separate entity either very far out there or perhaps very close. Instead, it is inseparable from everyone. Love's warmth penetrates every particle of everyone's true individuality, which is entirely spiritual. The Bible describes this love: "And we have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him" (I John 4:16).

To dwell in God means to believe in Love and to live according to it. God is everywhere, and our awareness of His presence ends sorrow and sadness. There has never been a moment when each individual on earth was not loved by God. There is no earthly incident beyond the embrace of Love. This spiritual fact dissolves hate, erases old hurts, rekindles hope. It heals the wounds of disappointment.

And time and again, it has restored health.

This is because Love is the essence of harmony. Perfection and peace are made of the substance of Love, so there is no conflict, no friction. Love is never at war with itself or with its own ever-presence. In its infinity there is no place where resistance can originate. The nonstop action of Love cuts through even the most unbending or resentful thoughts. Bitterness often stems from sorrow. So adamant attitudes, no matter how apparently justified, are conquered by Love.

Each of us can choose to be consciously "in sync" with Love, to perfect whatever needs to be lined up with Love. Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of this newspaper, wrote often about the power of Love. "In patient obedience to a patient God, let us labor to dissolve with the universal solvent of Love the adamant of error, - self-will, self-justification, and self-love, - which wars against spirituality and is the law of sin and death" ("Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," pg. 242). To perfect our thoughts and actions, we need to feel included in Love. Then we can expect and trust the action of Love and feel assured that nothing is too hard, or too far away from God.

Ah Lord God!

Behold, thou hast made

the heaven and the earth

by thy great power and

stretched out arm,

and there is nothing

too hard for thee.

Jeremiah 32:17

(c) Copyright 2001. The Christian Science Publishing Society