God's will is joy, peace, and the highest good for all His children; but sometimes one's human experiences seem so severe and the problems so numerous that happiness and peace appear to be the exception instead of the rule. This, however, is only a seeming, the phenomenon of a false mortal sense of life. Often trying circumstances cause mortals to forsake material means for gaining happiness. Then they are ready to turn to God, divine Love, the source of all good.
Mary Baker Eddy, the inspired Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, says in "Retrospection and Introspection" (p. 21), "The heavenly intent of earth's shadows is to chasten the affections, to rebuke human consciousness and turn it gladly from a material, false sense of life and happiness, to spiritual joy and true estimate of being." All our human experiences, some considered good and some bad, are "earth's shadows," the shadows of matter opposed to the substance and reality of Life, Spirit. For material life, with its beliefs of sin, sickness, and death, is as a shadow which soon passes away. The more deeply one is involved in the belief of life in matter, the more real it seems, the deeper the shadows in which he seems to walk.
No one wants to walk in darkness and gloom, but rather in the sunlight of Life and peace. There is no good but God, for so-called material good is not substantial. It is temporal and fleeting. God alone is good, unchangeable and eternal, and only as we gain an understanding of Him does permanent good unfold in our lives. Christ Jesus said, "He that followeth me shall not walk in darkness, but shall have the light of life." Christian Science reveals the light of infinite Life and Love, and as we study this Science and gain an understanding of the Christ, Truth, we find this glorious light of Life enfolding us. Then we learn to value things aright. The affections are chastened and motives purified as we learn to relinquish the human sense of love and reflect divine Love.
