SOMETIMES a human heart aches because of something out of the past which torments it in the present. It may be an error of earlier years occasioned by lack of understanding, a neglect, a mistake, a sorrow, or a sickness. Christian Science reveals that these and any other regrets or errors of the past are obliterated by the understanding of the universal, impartial ever presence and reality of good, the recompense of Love.
The Preacher stated (Eccl. 3:14, 15): "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him. That which hath been is now; and that which is to be hath already been; and God requireth that which is past." Through the recompense of Love we learn that the real and good are eternal, immortal, ever present; they are never subject to loss, deterioration, diminution, dissolution.
Mary Baker Eddy states in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 12): "We own no past, no future, we possess only now. If the reliable now is carelessly lost in speaking or in acting, it comes not back again. Whatever needs to be done which cannot be done now, God prepares the way for doing; while that which can be done now, but is not, increases our indebtedness to God. Faith in divine Love supplies the ever-present help and now, and gives the power to 'act in the living present.'"
