Love that heals

Opening our hearts to a more expansive understanding of the Love that is God can make a big difference in our lives.

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
Loading the player...

The ancient Greeks had many names for love. They ranged from romantic love to brotherly love to agape, which speaks to the kind of immeasurable love God has for us.

And Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, understood how Christ Jesus relied on the power of God, divine Love itself, to heal. She also elucidated the concept of God as both Father and Mother. In her book “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” she wrote, “Science reveals infinity and the fatherhood and motherhood of Love” (p. 519).

The concept of the divine motherhood of Love has taken me to a new level of understanding – one that’s brought about healing.

A few years ago, I came home from work in the middle of the day. I had a pounding headache and couldn’t function. In many circumstances previously, I had found healing by relying solely on the teachings of Christian Science. So I tried to pray. But I felt incapacitated by the pain.

I called a Christian Science practitioner, a full-time healer, for help. I told her, “I can barely think, let alone pray.” Her response gave me a whole new perspective on prayer and love. She encouraged me to just feel God’s Mother-love, rather than trying to outthink the pain or embark on an intellectual search for a spiritual antidote.

What she said rang true, reminding me of this passage in Science and Health about spiritual understanding: “This understanding is not intellectual, is not the result of scholarly attainments; it is the reality of all things brought to light” (p. 505).

So I did just that. I let that pure, divine Mother-love envelop me. Within just a few minutes, the pain was gone. I felt wrapped in a pure, spiritual love. And I was able to go back to work and finish my day with complete freedom.

The love that our Father-Mother God, Love, has for all of us as His spiritual offspring heals effectively.

For a regularly updated collection of insights relating to the war in Ukraine from the Christian Science Perspective column, click here.

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

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 Love that heals
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/Commentary/A-Christian-Science-Perspective/2022/0401/Love-that-heals
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe