At one time my employer ordered a sizable "key man" life insurance policy for me, and I had to take a physical examination in connection with it. About a week later I was told there was a problem: the physician had found that I had a heart murmur. I asked if I could be examined again, and got an appointment for two weeks later at a local hospital.
The dictionary says that to murmur is to complain. I found in the Bible that the children of Israel murmured over the hardships of leaving Egypt and wandering in the wilderness. They murmured when they had no food; Moses' prayers were answered with manna from God. They murmured about the lack of water; Moses struck a rock, which provided water (see Ex., chaps. 16 and 17). I analyzed my thinking, and found I'd been complaining about various things. And in the following two weeks I endeavored not to complain about anything!
Mrs. Eddy wrote in Science and Health, "Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual,—neither in nor of matter, —and the body will then utter no complaints" (p. 14). Through my study I found that the antidote for murmuring is gratitude. You can't complain when you are rejoicing, and I found I had a lot to be grateful for. I spent time being grateful for the knowledge I had about myself as a child of God—as His full representation. I read in Mrs. Eddy's Message to The Mother Church for 1902: "To the burdened and weary, Jesus saith: 'Come unto me.' O glorious hope! there remaineth a rest for the righteous, a rest in Christ, a peace in Love. The thought of it stills complaint; the heaving surf of life's troubled sea foams itself away, and underneath is a deep-settled calm" (p. 19).
