A springtime blessing
A Christian Science perspective: Overcoming loss and seeing the newness of life.
A number of years ago I felt a deep sense of heaviness and exhaustion following the sudden passing of my first husband. There was a lot to do and much to think about at the time.
As a Christian Scientist, I turned each day to our Father-Mother God, divine Mind, for guidance. I found comfort in the biblical promise that “thy Maker is thine husband” (Isaiah 54:5). I understood that because God is ever present, I could never for a moment lack the support I needed to go forward at that time. I knew that divine Mind would show me what I needed to see or do each step of the way. I had learned from past experience that prayer brings harmony to every aspect of human experience.
One day, as I looked out the window, I suddenly noticed some spring flowers, which had popped through the soil. I also saw that the tree branches, which had been so barren, were starting to bud. This reminded me of a quote by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science: “The floral apostles are hieroglyphs of Deity. Suns and planets teach grand lessons. The stars make night beautiful, and the leaflet turns naturally towards the light” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 240).
The flowers and buds illustrated to me God’s presence and activity. It came to me clearly that because God Himself is Life, Life is absolutely irrepressible. It is always present and expressed. It is the genuine reality.
I felt with conviction that my husband was forever united with God, just as I was; neither of us for a moment was separate from our Maker. And I knew that the intuitive spiritual understanding of these things could bring renewal and comfort right where I was seeing and feeling lack and loss of good.
The Bible tells us that man – each one of us in our true being – is made in God’s image and likeness (see Genesis 1:27), and that “in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Because God is Spirit, man’s true being is spiritual. It is forever intact and indestructible. Nothing can terminate man’s being as God’s expression.
As I quietly prayed about these ideas, I understood more clearly than before that man is always governed by God, not by the material sense of things. If God is the source of all we need, then matter is never the real source, nor can it deprive us of anything. The reality of being is, in the words of Mrs. Eddy, “God giving all and man having all that God gives” (“The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” p. 5). And I knew that what He gives is entirely good.
As I accepted these spiritual facts, all heaviness and exhaustion disappeared. I felt refreshed and invigorated and had a genuine sense of joy and dominion from that point on.
Every year, spring is a reminder for me of this resurrection in my thinking and the blessings that followed. I am grateful to have a better understanding of God’s unchanging goodness and ever-present love. Truly, “Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning” (James 1:17).