When we apply our understanding of Christian Science to the renovating or restructuring that's needed in our life, does it sometimes seem as if we had only stirred up a lot of trouble? Do things seem to go from bad to worse? In dismay we may wish we'd left things alone.
Of course, we don't stir up trouble just for the sake of stirring it up. Yet sometimes the stirring up is necessary before we see the trouble disappear from our experience. Mrs. Eddy tells us in Science and Health: "The muddy river-bed must be stirred in order to purify the stream. In moral chemicalization, when the symptoms of evil, illusion, are aggravated, we may think in our ignorance that the Lord hath wrought an evil; but we ought to know that God's law uncovers so-called sin and its effects, only that Truth may annihilate all sense of evil and all power to sin." Science and Health, p. 540.
The dark recesses of our consciousness need to be stirred up and any unhealthy beliefs cleared out. To illustrate, one day my attention was drawn to a single-story building on the main street of our city. The upper front portion of it was completely torn away, exposing dark, rotting wood. At the time I dismissed the ugly scene on an otherwise pretty street, thinking that in a few days the building would be sporting a new front and the three shops that share it would be presenting new faces to the street. But for over two weeks the unsightly mess was there for all to see. Not only that, workmen were continuing to tear away the wooden structure exposing wormholes and blotchy wood. It was at this point I realized that, of course, all the rot had to be torn away before proper restructuring could take place. I stopped mumbling to myself about the mess and instead appreciated the care and thoroughness with which the project was proceeding.
