To heal infidelity

Probably none of us could claim to be entirely free of infidelity -- in its broadest sense. Perhaps our need is as simple as being more faithful in little promises we made to our children or to a commitment we've made with ourselves: being more generous or kind or studious.

But an increasing number of people nowadays find themselves faced with a failure to keep their commitment to marriage vows. While there will be those who lightly shrug off infidelity as in step with the times, others are wide-awake to how devastating this evil is for the family and society. And some are bringing healing to their marriage through prayer.

Often temptations are nipped in the bud -- cleared up before wrong actions (and the roots of guilt, bitterness, and resentment) take hold.On other occasions, the healing involves a long struggle, demanding a fundamental reformation of character and attitude for both partners. The individual, the family, society itself, benefit enormously when spiritual healing wins out -- when it conquers the propensity to sin and prevents the wreckage so often left in the wake of sin.

Many people have prayed very earnestly about their marriage when trouble has struck -- but have felt they were struggling against tremendous odds. Maybe sometimes we arem being called on to overturn in our own life what can seem like the overwhelming influence of society's drift toward permissiveness. But immorality is not all-powerful. You can prove Wendell Phillips's assurance that "one with God is a majority."

Christian Science offers avenues of fresh insight to those praying for the healing of infidelity. It shows that in truth we have an unbreachable relationship to God, Principle -- and that Principle shines through our real nature with spiritual integrity and purity. But beyond revealing such a profound truth, Science shows us how to defend this spiritual fact when we're faced with an apparent violation of it.

One example of how to restore and preserve one's innate spiritual innocence is to expose and challenge in prayer not just the obvious but the latent evil. Many times the fundamental error of those caught up in the web of infidelity is confusion.m They have simply lost the ability to distinguish between right and wrong -- or lost the will to do so. Prayer can bring clarity to this mental breakdown, especially when it roots out the specific influences that would foster such confusion.

For instance, in recent decades western society has been inundated with occultism -- such practices as astrology, eastern philosophies, spiritualism. For those who haven't been alert to defend their Christian heritage with its clear moral precepts, the encroachments of occultism may take shape in thought as confusion -- and even lead to a fundamental uncertainty about or blindness to basic Christian precepts.

The darkness of occultism may have the effect of overshadowing enlightened Christian moral values -- until we rouse ourselves and let in the light of Christ. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, "The march of mind and of honest investigation will bring the hour when the people will chain, with fetters of some sort, the growing occultism of this period." n1

n1 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,m p. 570.

Mrs. Eddy had her eyes wide open to whatever would confuse human thought, and she makes plain in her writings that our growing love and acceptance of the Christ, the true idea of God, does have a healing, clarifying, purifying influence in consciousness.

The issue isn't just the infidelity. It's the right of the individual, and society, to think and act with spiritual clarity -- free from groping in the darkness of moral confusion.The Bible assures us, "God is not the author of confusion." n2 One of the great blessings of Christianity is the crisp clarity it brings to human thought. When that clarity comes under attack, the Christian will rise to defend it.

n2 I Corinthians 14:33.

One can acknowledge God's Christ as having true power, as being the only influence he or his spouse or a third party need submit to. A humble desire to let the Christ govern thought provides the courage and mental clarity to act in accord with moral and spiritual law. DAILY BIBLE VERSE Thou shalt not commit adultery. Exodus 20:14