Our real home

The expression “Home is where the heart is” often refers not to a building but rather to a locality and culture where we feel at home. But what happens when you find yourself without these comforts? Feelings of isolation, loneliness, or depression may suggest that opportunities for happiness are gone.

I once had to leave my home for a needed job. The constant pressures to conform to a new way of life and the disappointments and setbacks associated with the legal and social requirements of a new country and language threatened my sense of ease and well-being. Through earnest prayer, however, I glimpsed that we all live in the atmosphere of God’s love, where each individual is at home.

As a result of this inspiration, my thought was transformed by the universal bond of warmth and brotherly love that has its source in God, divine Love. I felt a new and deeper sense of belonging and security and viewed those around me differently. I learned that wherever we are, this atmosphere of Love is reliable, and it always feels like home. Jesus called it the kingdom of God.

Christian Science, based on the biblical truth that God, good, is all-powerful and ever present, instructs: “Divest your thought, then, of the mortal and material view which contradicts the ever-presence and all-power of good; take in only the immortal facts which include these, and where will you see or feel evil, or find its existence necessary either to the origin or ultimate of good?” (Mary Baker Eddy, “Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896,” p. 14).

And the Bible says, “Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness” (I Thessalonians 5:5). We reflect God’s unconquerable truth, and this light eliminates fear by revealing the spiritual good that is always present.

Instead of indulging fear and hostility, through prayer we can exchange the material view that denies God’s all-power and goodness for the immortal facts that proclaim our right to spiritual satisfaction and joy.

As we pray in this way, we experience the kingdom of heaven – the reign and rule of God and His eternal qualities, such as peace, satisfaction, purpose, success, and joy. All the qualities of the divine Mind that we need in order to feel at home are right within our consciousness; we just may not be used to looking for them and engaging with them when we don’t initially feel them.

I remember a moment when the light of Truth eliminated fear about an economic downturn that appeared to make it impossible to sell my house and get out from under the mortgage during a move. After fretting extensively for some time, I reached out to God. At that moment, a beam of intense sunlight passed through a prism hanging in my window and cast a beautiful rainbow across the room. The book in my lap was opened to this passage by Mary Baker Eddy: “Humility is lens and prism to the understanding of Mind-healing;...

“Cherish humility, ‘watch,’ and ‘pray without ceasing,’ or you will miss the way of Truth and Love” (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 356).

In art school, I had learned that white light includes all the colors of the rainbow, but the naked eye cannot see them without a prism. I saw that to become aware of the good that God is always providing, I could embrace the humility in which we yield up our own opinions, no matter how much fear claims to justify them. I resolved to trust God, divine Mind.

With that, my fear evaporated. In a few days, my house sold, much to the incredulity of the real estate agent.

When we feel the kind of faith that is not mere optimism but is based on an active understanding of the power and presence of God’s law of harmony, cynicism, hopelessness, and world-weariness lose their grip on us, and we find our true home. This home is constant and permanent because it includes the substance of unchanging good.

As our focus shifts to recognize the presence and power of spiritual good, fear-based impressions pass away like darkness before light. This light of Truth brings to our experience practical answers.

Recognizing the peace and all-inclusiveness of our real home, we can stay firm and bold in our faith and gentle and warm in our thoughts of others. Then we know our spiritual nature as forever dwellers in the kingdom of heaven.

Adapted from an article published in the Oct. 31, 2022, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.