Having a wonderful vacation!

A young woman with small children felt pressured by home responsibilities. The summer was hot, the children fought among themselves. She longed to get away for a few days of rest, but a vacation was impossible.

One evening, after an extremely trying day, she realized she had been believing that simply moving the body to some other location would be restful. But now she saw that when she returned she would face the same overwhelming pressures and fears. What she really needed was a deeper understanding of God and of her relation to Him. Rest, she began to understand, is not to be found in mere bodily movement or in absence of thinking but in active recognition of man's unity with God.

She found this dictionary definition of "vacation?: "Time free for something else; specifically, time for contemplation." Here was the vacation she needed -- time to seek the kingdom of God, for Christ Jesus promised that all our needs will be supplied if we seek this kingdom. n1

See Matthew 6:33.

For an entire month she rose very early to attend to cooking and household chores for the day. She made arrangements for the care of the children in the afternoons so that she would have time for a spiritual vacation, which would bless not only her but her family, too.

In research of the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, n2 she lerned that God is the only Life, or Mind, and that man and the universe express Him and are spiritual. Each one of us in his true being -- existing in inseparable unity with God -- is the instrument through which God gives eternal expression to the grandeur of His being. This idea of man expressing the invariable perfection of God demands more than mere acceptance. IT means striving to live our lives as the perfect child of God we really are, instead of the frustrated mortal we actually aren't.

n2 Discover and Founder of Christian Science.

The woman discovered that the calmness, inspiration, and love she found in the hours of study and prayer did not end with the closing of the books and the resumption of human duties. Rather, her spontaneous joy illumined every duty and led to less drabness and more harmony in her life.

When she later looked back at this time, the woman saw that it was the most profitable vacation she had ever had, and the good she gained through her study remains to brighten and inspire the present.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,m Mrs. Eddy makes an interesting statement about Jesus that could very well apply to our own lives. She writes, "Jesus prayed; he withdrew from the material senses to refresh his heart with brighter, with spiritual views." n3

n3 Science and Health,m p.32.

These brighter, spiritual views are not reached by plane or car but by a change of thought from materiality to the contemplation of the spiritually real. This templation of the spiritually real. This holiday does not require any money, but does require that we love God, and our neighbor as ourselves.

We can enjoy this wonderful vacation, even amid our daily tasks, as we acquiant ourselves with the divine Mind -- the source of every perfect thought -- and claim our unity with Mind. We can also deny persistently the unreality of everything that would contest God's allness. Mrs. Eddy says in her book No and Yes:m "The real Christ was unconscious of matter, of sin, disease, and death, and was conscious only of God, of good, of eternal Life, and harmony. Hence the human Jesus had a resort to his higher self and relation to the Father, and there could find rest from unreal trials in the conscious reality and royalty of his being, -- holding the mortal as unreal, and the divine as real." n4

n4 No and Yes,m p. 36.

Resorting to our higher self not only helps provide satisfaction and peace, but leads to higher and unlabored achievements. When one's thought is securely anchored in the omnipresence of God, it is not soporific, but stimulating and energizing.

"The highest and sweetest rest, even from a human standpoint, is in holy work ," n5 says Mrs. Eddy. Today, and every day, we can have a wonderful vacation, making it the holy day of divine Life.

n5 Science and Health,m pp. 519-520.

DAILY BIBLE VERSE There remaineth therefore a rest to the people of God. Hebrews 4:9