“I think you’re depressed,” a friend told me candidly. She was a clinical nurse.
I had so much going for me at the time, it didn’t seem to make sense, but much of what I’d shared with her pointed to what she described. In addition, I regularly thought about death throughout the day. While I was still able to laugh and enjoy others’ company, it felt like an uneasy static was playing at a dull roar in the background of my life.
This went on for years, until a life-changing two weeks that broke me free of it. I had signed up for a unique course offered by authorized teachers of Christian Science for those wanting to take a deep dive into what Christian Science is and how it heals. In addition to the Bible, this class dove deeply into the chapter called “Recapitulation” in the book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, the woman who discovered the Science of Christ – the Science behind Jesus’ healings.
Each day of class brought answers – not by looking at death, but by getting to know Life, which is another name for God. Divine Life can only include what lives forever, which is the spiritual. Death, in fact, is Life’s opposite – never mixed with or part of it. Because God is eternal, Life can’t include anything fleeting.
As I began to see Life as spiritual – not subject to the ups and downs of a transient physical world – I found a steady resolve that couldn’t be shaken.
The Bible says we are made by God. As the spiritual offspring of God, Christian Science explains, we live in Life and can’t be separated from it. That is the reality of being. “Being” can only ever “be.”
Steadily gaining a more spiritual view of life, I was able to leave daily thoughts of death behind. I could feel something of what the Revelator recorded in the Bible: “And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away” (Revelation 21:4). That mental “static” had passed away and was nowhere to be found. Even a decade later, I feel strength and an impenetrable joy, even during turbulent times.
Primary class instruction in Christian Science wasn’t the end of the journey, though. I still continue to learn more about Life. Annual Christian Science students’ association meetings have brought ongoing enrichment that contributes to my spiritual growth. And every week, the Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly brings inspiration from the Bible and Science and Health. This week, the subject is “Probation After Death,” and the lesson shares this message about the spiritual reality of life here and now:
“Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will surely appear sometime and in some way. There will be no more pain, and all tears will be wiped away. When you read this, remember Jesus’ words, ‘The kingdom of God is within you.’ This spiritual consciousness is therefore a present possibility” (Science and Health, pp. 573-574).
In spite of difficult situations, it’s not death or material systems that bring us answers, but Life and the spiritual – the “kingdom of God,” as Jesus put it. Learning more about God, Life, brings hope. And placing our hope in Life brings a healing, spiritual joy that can’t ever be taken.
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