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Simply trust

In this poem, the author shares a spiritual lesson she learned from freeing a trapped bird.

  • By Elizabeth Mata

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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Maybe trusting is something
more simple after all – like the
certainty that darkness can’t
defy dawn, nor sunflowers reject
the sun; that spring always comes.

Once when confidence seemed
fragile, squeezed of simplicity,
soaked in skepticism, a tiny
bird’s story lit my thought. It was
motionless, trapped in wire I began
to snip so carefully, wordlessly
leaning on God as all-embracing
Love, as unfailing, omnipresent
Spirit. Then at the last snip the bird
took off full tilt – as though waiting
in stillness, expecting release.

Poised in quiet prayer, we can feel
God’s goodness giving rise to a
solid trust springing from a sure
spiritual view of everyone’s utter
unity with the one creator – pure
Spirit – as wholly spiritual offspring,
children in harmony; an unshaken
clarity rooted deep within us of
the truth of our divine nature as
Love-derived, innocent of evil.

Letting this divine reality govern
our thinking wings our spiritual
conviction; cuts away the sway of
suspicion, of tangled, doubting
divisiveness as valid and justified;
it frees trust to undo clenched
opinions, to give with grace, to
usher in forgiveness, until trusting
becomes more effortless – after all.

Inspired to think and pray further about fostering trust around the globe? To explore how people worldwide are navigating times of mistrust and learning to build trust in each other, check out the Monitor's "Rebuilding trust" project.

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