Finding peace and home
A Christian Science perspective.
My husband is from Spain, and I’m from the United States, so we divide our time between the two countries. It’s not uncommon for people to ask which country I consider home. Preferences aside, that question has made me think more deeply about the spiritual meaning of home.
Most of us want our home and surroundings to include warmth, stability, and peace. As normal as it is to have a home that has these things, circumstances such as foreclosure, destructive weather, or divorce can uproot all that we hold dear about home. Or maybe there’s a necessity to sell one’s home, and there’s no buyer in sight. Then what to do?
No matter what’s missing or what needs fixing in my life, I’ve found I can always turn to God in prayer to find the unchanging, real, spiritual concept of what I think is missing. And this is no less true about issues concerning home. Gaining a permanent sense of the real substance of home through prayer reveals that it is something that can never be taken away – never be broken or destroyed. It is where we each live right now regardless of human circumstances.
The Apostle Paul tells us something helpful about our real dwelling place when he says in part, “We have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens” (II Corinthians 5:1).
You might well say, “What good does that do when I need a house built with hands?” What Paul says is not to minimize the human need to have or sell a home, but to bring to light that each of us as God’s dear child truly lives in goodness and harmony, where the law of Love governs. This spiritual law comprises and holds together our very existence, independent of circumstances, and always shows Love’s unchangeable care for us.
This secure structure of God-given abundance is the spiritual consciousness of Mind. Because God is our Mind, it is the only real consciousness we have in spite of human laws of statistics, market fluctuations, or chance. Consciously living in Mind, which is the presence and power of divine Love, can open the way to finding a home or resources that enable us to keep a home. It can bring together the right buyer and seller.
Years ago, when I decided to buy a condo, questions arose about my qualifications for a loan. A Christian Science practitioner was praying with me and for me to understand more clearly my inseparable relationship with God and His goodness. I pondered in my prayers that “Mind, God, is the source and condition of all existence” from “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of the Monitor (p. 181).
A dictionary defines “condition” as terms of an agreement, which are set and established. Suddenly, I saw that man – meaning each of us – is in complete agreement with God. The fixed conditions of this agreement were that God is the only cause, and man in the image and likeness of God is the only effect. I knew that this was true for all parties in this transaction, regardless of the outcome. I became completely at peace that I was in my real home, which was not controlled by what other individuals decided. A few days later the loan came through, and we moved forward with the closing.
Mrs. Eddy wrote, “Our surety is in our confidence that we are indeed dwellers in Truth and Love, man’s eternal mansion” (“Pulpit and Press,” p. 3). So, preferences aside, as we are conscious of living in this mansion, no human need, including those concerning our home, goes unanswered.