Guided safely home

A Christian Science perspective: We are never left without the tender love of our Father-Mother God.

The recent pictures in the news showing people left homeless by ongoing flooding in Texas, Louisiana, India, Nepal, and elsewhere can be very discouraging.

As so many others have been doing, I began praying for everyone affected by the floods. And then I remembered how God, divine Love, met my need at a time of utter desperation, when my daughter and I were suddenly left homeless. I had turned to God so many times in my life and found beautiful answers, but this time I felt so alone.

As I sat crying on the bed, the phone rang. It was a friend who was also in tears. There had been a huge destructive storm with flooding in her area, and her kitty had disappeared in the storm a few days earlier. Even though I love animals, my first thought was: “Your kitty! I can’t even provide a home for my daughter and me!”

But then I remembered that God’s love never fails any of us, even in the worst situations, and I needed to become still so I could hear the Christ, divine Love’s tender message of comfort. I picked up a book of the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science. It fell open to this passage, which refers to God as divine Soul: “Thus founded upon the rock of Christ, when storm and tempest beat against this sure foundation, you, safely sheltered in the strong tower of hope, faith, and Love, are God’s nestlings; and He will hide you in His feathers till the storm has passed. Into His haven of Soul there enters no element of earth to cast out angels, to silence the right intuition which guides you safely home” (“Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896,” p. 152).

That’s when I realized that we are all safely sheltered in the Christ love that is more powerful than any evil. This Christly truth comes to us as “angel” messages guiding us to an understanding that as children of God, our real home is secure in Love’s care, so it can never be lost. And no one is excluded from God’s infinite love!

With a deep conviction of the truth of these ideas, I assured my friend that her cat was absolutely secure in God’s care. We hung up, and I continued praying. Within minutes, I felt impelled to get in the car and begin driving. I was soon led to a perfect apartment for my daughter and me – affordable and ready for us to move into that day! Not long after that, my friend called me back to say that her cat had been found safely nestled in the school gym across town. The kitty was soon back home.

This experience and many others have shown me that no one can ever be separated from the tender love of our Father-Mother God, nor from the consciousness of divine Love’s ongoing protection and care – our true home!

A version of this article aired on the Aug. 30, 2017, Christian Science Daily Lift podcast.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Enjoying this content?
Explore the power of gratitude with the Thanksgiving Bible Lesson – free online through December 31, 2024. Available in English, French, German, Spanish, and (new this year) Portuguese.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to Guided safely home
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/A-Christian-Science-Perspective/2017/0908/Guided-safely-home
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe