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A way out of grief

A Christian Science perspective.

  • By Marilyn McPherson

A healing of grief that I’ve experienced is leading me to a greater understanding of the abundant divine life that Christ Jesus spoke of. As he was teaching his disciples about a life of prayer and healing, lived in and of Spirit, God, he told them, “I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly” (John 10:10).

My husband of 36 years passed away in April after a difficult illness. The Christian Science healer who supported me in prayer throughout the time of his medical treatment kept pointing me to Chapter 8 of the Bible book of Romans, where St. Paul asks, “Who will separate us from the love of Christ?,” and then answers: “I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor rulers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (New Revised Standard Version).

I asked myself how could I understand the life of my husband and my own life in a way that would lift me out of the sorrow that kept coming over me as I remembered all the things we did as a couple and all the things I would no longer be doing with him. The emptiness of the house and the loss seemed unbearable.

Here are some of the ideas I began praying with: God knows His creation as good, and made man, including all men and women, in His own likeness (see Genesis 1:26, 27). God means for all His sons and daughters – you and me and everyone – to know and experience all good and never to despair or feel abandoned. As the likeness of God, Spirit, man is spiritual and immortal, not material or mortal.

The writings of Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, are full of references to how an understanding of Life as God leads to healing and regeneration. She wrote in her major work, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” “Entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living, is the Life divine, revealing spiritual understanding and the consciousness of man’s dominion over the whole earth” (p. 14).

Missing a loved one’s presence can be very difficult, but remembering the promise of knowing God in whose love and care I and my husband can safely rest, and from whom he and I cannot be separated, reoriented my thinking from sorrow to joy and from loneliness to fulfillment. Working with these ideas has brought a great comfort and peace. I continue to feel the blessings of these prayers every day. Thoughts of sadness or heaviness of heart are dispelled when I remember God’s closeness and His infinite love and care for me.

Turning to the “love of Christ” to live “more abundantly” has led me up and out of grief to glimpse a way forward with God’s companionship always at hand.

I already have the Life that is God, who is both Father and Mother. Nothing has separated nor can separate me or anyone from this Life and the divine Love that envelops, sustains, and comforts us.

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