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Loving support

A Christian Science perspective: Enriching a mother’s love for her child.

My baby took my breath away. When my daughter was born, I was overwhelmed with love for her. Gazing at her nestled in my arms had me asking how I could possibly be enough for this tiny child. How could I express my love for her most deeply? How could I be attentive to her every need?

I wanted to fulfill my responsibilities to her in the best way possible, but I needed support. I wanted to better understand love and how to express it more meaningfully. So I began to search for the highest, most profound sense of love – something that the Bible refers to as divine. “God is love,” I John 4:8 states, and throughout the Bible is the idea that man is created by God, divine Love. The first chapter of the Bible even describes man in His “image” and “likeness” (see Genesis 1:26).

This makes man not the origin of Love, but the reflection of Love. “Man is not God, but like a ray of light which comes from the sun, man, the outcome of God, reflects God,” writes Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 250). Rather than being the source of Love, this makes an individual the very outcome of divine Love – Love’s spiritual expression.

How freeing to think that spiritual love is intrinsic to our very being! The infinite, eternal, and sustaining Love that is God is actually our Life. Infinite Life, or Love, isn’t something one individual can contain; it is the inexhaustible source for all to express.

I suddenly felt a strength and peace I hadn’t known. I could see that a fretful sense of love wasn’t the love of God described in First John. The writer of that epistle described divine Love, spiritual power as untouched by fear. It reads, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear” (I John 4:18).

From this basis, I caught a glimpse that we all stand on the everlasting and boundless basis of Love, which never fails nor wanes. This spiritual foundation is the only place to support my ability to love. It enriches the expression of my love with tenderness and attentive affection. I find better ways to care for my daughter’s needs than I would have been able to accomplish without this empowerment. I find divine Love to be the strongest basis for supporting my daughter, and I find that she, too, is an expression of inexhaustible Love.

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Mark Sappenfield
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