Breakthrough!
If you've ever felt stymied, you know the keen longing for release. Whether stuck in a traffic jam, struggling with limited physical ability, or facing a business stalemate, every one of us instinctively desires freedom from limits.
But when an obstacle seems to threaten our very well-being, the sweetest breakthrough of all comes from spiritual healing.
At Easter season, it's customary to commemorate Jesus' final days and hours, to ponder their continuing import. I like to think of his triumph over the crucifixion and burial - and joy over his resurrection and ascension - as, among other wonderful lessons, a model that illustrates sure healing of the most stubborn problems.
From the time of his arrest to the triumphant reunion with his disciples, Jesus' progression through each effort to thwart his mission offers a clear pattern for overcoming resistance to good. He embodied humility, obedience, courage, patience, selflessness, perseverance, and love for God and humanity. Not one indignity elicited anger, frustration, self-pity, or defeatism, even under the most excruciating hardships.
Expressing Christlike qualities, refusing to indulge in typical reactions, and persevering despite what looked like insurmountable conditions - these habits form a framework for removing stumbling blocks to our own progress. In any challenge, it's God who supplies our spiritual sense and renews our faith in His infinite comfort and guidance.
Mary Baker Eddy described Jesus' entombment and the spiritual perception that assured his release: "There were rock-ribbed walls in the way, and a great stone must be rolled from the cave's mouth; but Jesus vanquished every material obstacle, overcame every law of matter, and stepped forth from his gloomy resting-place, crowned with the glory of a sublime success, an everlasting victory" ("Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," pp. 44-45).
What hope this victory gives us! Blockages to health and happiness sometimes seem longstanding. Efforts to overcome burdens or disadvantages may have foundered. But the timeless spiritual understanding Jesus put to use in the tomb is ours to apply in whatever "rock-ribbed" difficulty we find ourselves.
How can we be sure of this? Jesus' own words provide confidence: "Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also" (John 14:12). Contemporary testimonies of healing reassure us that this is as true today as it was centuries ago, as found in back issues and current pages of the Christian Science Sentinel, The Christian Science Journal, and the last chapter of "Science and Health."
In my own life, stonelike obstacles have included job uncertainty, financial shortage, loneliness, overeating, bureaucratic gridlock, dishonest co-workers, broken relationships, character flaws, injuries, and disease. Each barrier has fallen before efforts to follow Jesus' example of persistent prayer, and to express the qualities he demonstrated.
Two thousand years later, Easter still stirs hearts with the joy of bonds dissolved. And in our own experience, every impediment destroyed through spiritual healing echoes to some degree Jesus' emergence from bondage to freedom, from darkness to light.
Whatever we're facing, the ultimate breakthrough is the discovery that no hindrance can block goodness.
God, the source of good, ensures its continuous flow to every one of His children. As Mrs. Eddy confirmed: "Whatever obstructs the way, - causing to stumble, fall, or faint, those mortals who are striving to enter the path, - divine Love will remove; and uplift the fallen and strengthen the weak" ("Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896," p. 328).
