"I asked God how to be obedient"

I realized that mortal mind’s assessments about Christian Science healing being limited by any human condition – the times, societal inclinations, medical advances, people’s spirituality or lack of it – are baseless and need to be swept clean from thought.

As a teen, when I received this book from a Sunday School teacher, my favorites were L. Adrienne Vinciguerra’s inspiring account of being introduced to Christian Science as a prisoner of war in WWII and simply walking out of the camp in the middle of the war so that she could learn more about and practice Christian Science, as well as Dwight S. Mills’ testimony of finding the solution to an airplane design problem by trusting Mind. They are still marked in my book after all these years, and I’ve shared them with several of my Sunday School classes through the years. But this time reading the book, it’s the powerful physical healings that are stirring, feeding, and inspiring my heart. And I couldn’t choose one or two, because it’s the volume of them that has been most meaningful to me. Page after page, mortal mind’s fiercest arguments are shut down by Love and Science. The book fills me with gratitude for all these unselfish, faithful lives moved by Science.

Yesterday, I started a list that included my brother’s healing of spinal meningitis when he was less than 2 while my dad was in the Korean War and my mom was at an Air Force base hospital in a new town far from her home. She had to walk outside the hospital to use a pay phone to call a practitioner. After the call, as she tells it, when she looked at my brother, all she could see was God’s perfect child. There was an instantaneous healing.

I also recalled a Sunday School teacher telling us how she was healed of blindness and how that forever changed the way I approached Sunday School.

But today, after reading a news article suggesting the disruptions there are and will be in the supply chain for food and other necessities due to the pandemic, I thought about the many times I’ve experienced God’s shepherding capacity to feed and care for me. I can stand on that in my prayer for my neighbor and world. This moves me to write down my first major experience of turning to God after college, which I’ve shared in a few testimony meetings through the years but have not written down before.

After graduating from college, I decided to move across the country to a new city. A few months earlier when I was praying about where to live, a friend called asking if I’d like to rent a room in her apartment. It had a bed but no furniture. I was thrilled. I arrived in the new city on a Wednesday, and that night, I went to church. The readings began with “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” This felt like a huge embrace from God. The next Sunday after church I had lunch with some friends who had great jobs and a beautifully furnished apartment. When I got home, I started scouring the want-ads, then wondered if I should be checking the furniture ads instead. I soon found myself consumed with confusion and with jealousy of my friends who already had jobs and furniture.

And then, the words from the Wednesday church service flooded my thought – “The Lord is my shepherd, I shall not want.” At that moment, that’s all I was doing was wanting, wanting what my friends already had – wanting a job, wanting a nicely-furnished apartment, wanting to know how to move forward in the adult world. I realized I was breaking the 10th Commandment, “Thou shalt not covet.” I asked God how to be obedient, how to stop wanting what others had and that I seemed to be lacking. Right then and there, God opened my eyes to a profound new way to see that commandment. I suddenly saw it as a promise, a truth, rather than an impossible demand. God did not make his children liable to covetousness. God’s children are constantly being shepherded by Him and therefore they never lack or are in want and so therefore do not need to want or covet. Another way to word the commandment could be, “Because you are My children, and I am constantly and perfectly caring for you, I have not made it possible for you to feel you don’t have what you need.” I saw that coveting blinded one to the goodness God was giving them and this commandment was a loving way of God directing us to turn from this blinding activity so that we could see the goodness He was always giving to us.

I spent some time soaking in this truth that I was a sheep that was totally cared for and guided by God, that I had a Shepherd who was guiding me each step of the way, taking care of each need. I was filled with gratitude for God. The fear, confusion, will, and jealously vanished. So, I asked my Shepherd what I should do next. A definite and surprising thought came. I should go to the grocery store and buy ingredients to make my friend some muffins. Okay, not what I expected, but I would be obedient. I got in the car and started to drive. After several blocks I realized that I had no idea how to get to the nearest grocery store in this new city. So, once again, I put my total trust in God’s shepherding and asked Him where to go. It felt very radical, but it also felt safe and natural. I started driving under this direction and within moments saw a used furniture store and a parking place. At God’s direction, I went in. I began finding things in this small store that would meet my needs – a desk, a desk chair, a dresser, a lamp, an area rug, a soft rocking chair, some décor. The owner of the shop told me they would be open for 30 more minutes and then were shutting down for the season and driving up north. They were wanting to get rid of things and were drastically reducing prices for me. They offered to deliver the furniture to my apartment for free right then – I hadn’t even thought about that whole aspect. Within an hour, I was back at my apartment, with all the furniture I needed in place, all purchased for under $30. I was very grateful to so quickly have my furniture needs met and at a price someone without a current job could afford. But what meant the most to me as I was beginning life as a young adult was this newfound, deep sense of God’s precise, intelligent shepherding love that I could trust. I leaned on it to find a job – one which changed my life and introduced me to the man who I would marry a year later. I’ve learned from and leaned on this precise, intelligent shepherding of God throughout my life whenever I’ve needed a home, employment, schooling, furniture, clothing, guidance.

It has always reminded me that “The depth, breadth, height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love fill all space. That is enough!” (SH 520) This Love, not a virus or fear of a virus, fill all space and thought, and can lovingly and precisely coordinate and regulate Mind’s infinitely capable supply chain of Divine Love meeting human needs. And fear, ignorance, will, and selfishness, which are not of God and therefore nonfactors, cannot stop It.

I’m going to pray with more expectancy, more power, and more frequency. In fact, I already have. And at some point, when it’s more appropriate, will share some of the healings and dawning of healings that have come from this. And, I will write them down before our Association meeting.