Pain – must we live with it?

I saw a television show that presented pain-management programs designed to help people keep chronic pain under control. Even though the motives for these programs were obviously impelled by a great compassion to relieve suffering, is finding a way to live with pain the only way out?

While we might feel like Jeremiah in the Bible when he said, "Why is my pain perpetual, and my wound incurable, which refuseth to be healed?" (Jer. 15:18), it is possible to be free of chronic pain. Asking God to show us the way through prayer opens our thought to the natural and perpetual harmony that comes with being governed by God. It's heavenly, right here on earth.

Jesus' mission was to reveal to all humanity that the kingdom of heaven is here, and Christian Science expands on that fact, explaining that heaven is a divine state of Mind, God. This divine state of thought is possible for everyone, here and now.

All right ideas and qualities in this kingdom of Spirit move in harmony without collision, friction, accident, or suffering of any sort. In this kingdom, this state of consciousness, there is nothing to pressure and strain, and nothing to feel pressure and strain. There is no relentless ache, throb, or jab.

As the blessed child of God, man's identity is without guilt and has no suffering penalty to pay. Everything in heaven fits together perfectly and is in its place. Pain can't hinder, hide, delay, or destroy these spiritual facts.

Because harmony comes from God, the divine Principle, it is a spiritual law that applies to everything in our lives, including health.

A few years ago, I was feeling ongoing pain in my legs and back. Through heartfelt turning to God, I began – thought by thought – to claim that all I embodied in my life was controlled, impelled, and directed by God.

Not for one moment had I left the harmony of my being. This was the only context of my life. I was also more alert not to react or complain, but to be grateful for this truth in order to keep my thought aligned and blending with these spiritual facts.

Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of this newspaper, wrote these comforting and reassuring words in her most important book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which helped me a great deal: "Immortal Mind feeds the body with supernal freshness and fairness, supplying it with beautiful images of thought and destroying the woes of sense which each day brings to a nearer tomb" (p. 248). The pain vanished.

If it seems as if there is no light at the end of the tunnel, it is not God's desire that His-Her creation suffer. The heaven of divine Love is not somewhere in the future. It is at hand – right here and right now – to know and to feel.

God shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes;
and there shall be
no more death,
neither sorrow, nor crying,
neither shall there be
any more pain:
for the former things
are passed away.

Revelation 21:4