Our back yard has two large trees. Every spring, for a few weeks, they would lose all their leaves and look dead. Then the leaves would grow back. With the new leaves would come a prolific offering of little golden flowers. But this year, something different happened. The trees never lost their leaves. They went straight to flower.
I see in this a message of hope that we may not really have to suffer or lose any good thing in order to progress. People sometimes say, “No pain, no gain,” or that you have to pay some hurtful dues to get somewhere in life.
But in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the major work on Christian Science, we find: “There should be painless progress, attended by life and peace instead of discord and death” (Mary Baker Eddy, p. 224).
