Finding Mother
In a very old issue of the Christian Science Sentinel, one writer spoke of how when she found Christian Science, she found something she had been looking for all her life: Mother Love. She found it in God.
Even those who have never known the love of a mother can discover for themselves how wonderful God’s love feels. While I had known much mothering love in my life, I wanted to ask the writer, “How did you do this? What did you find?” I was not raised by my mother and felt she had abandoned me. “What is a mother like?” I wondered.
The Bible assures us, “As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you” (Isaiah 66:13). And Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, writes this about divine Love, or God, in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures”: “Love, the divine Principle, is the Father and Mother of the universe, including man” (p. 256). Further, I had read all the articles I could find in the Christian Science periodicals about God as Mother. Yet a deep understanding or feeling of this divine motherhood eluded me.
Then came a time when my husband and I were searching for a new home. I am grateful to say that we did find a wonderful one. Even before we found our new home, however, so many amazing things unfolded. I was working with a Christian Science practitioner to support harmony and wisdom throughout the search, and through this prayer I felt a sense of God’s presence, goodness, and love that I had never felt before. I felt safe, secure, that I was being cared for, and that all was well, even though at that time I had no idea where our new home was to be. Perhaps closeness to God, joy, and peace best describe the feeling.
One day after we had moved into our new home, the practitioner said to me that when we feel God’s love, we are experiencing God’s motherhood. Wow! I realized that I already knew that feeling. I didn’t have to find it, then. I already had it! And I already knew it! And when I think of my biological mother, I know she too is loved in the same way.
Now when I think of that long-ago writer and her joy, I am happy for her and can say, “Yes, it is wonderful!” Each of us can take quiet moments to commune with our divine Mother, and, like a child would, go to Her for comfort. As God’s spiritual sons and daughters, we are inseparable from God’s tender, mothering care.
So, what does getting to know God as our heavenly Mother feel like? Words are insufficient! As Mrs. Eddy says in “Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896,” “O Mother Love! how has the sense of Thy children grown to behold Thee!” (p. 159).
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