Annual Meeting
What a joy it was not only to hear but to "view" the Annual Meeting of The Mother Church on my computer. I thoroughly enjoyed it, and I am grateful for the technology that is available to most of us. Just last month, I "enhanced" my computer, and because I did, the sound and the picture came through beautifully. The July Journal, with its report on the meeting, has given me further food for thought.
Rogers, Arkansas
Wars
I have been troubled about war—war in so many places. I couldn't really understand it all. I didn't seem to know how to pray about it until I read Paul Stark Seeley's article "Stand in the holy place," which was written in the 1940s and republished in the May Journal. It says, "Mortal mind, feeling its inadequacy ... impels its mortal puppet personalities with greed, fear, self-will, hatred, to set upon their fellow mortals ... what can evil purposes ever do? Destroy themselves. ... The subtlety of evil is ... thwarted by the strategy of God." I have read the article many times to understand its message. I am grateful for today's Journal writers, too, who share their enlightenment with those of us who need it.
Sarasota, Florida
Keeping Children safe
One afternoon recently, our first-grade son went out to play in the neighborhood as he usually does, but he didn't return home. After checking with all of the neighbors, we became concerned, and we asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray for our family. It became a rainy, dark evening and we notified the local police department.
While my husband was speaking to the policeman on duty, I glanced down and saw on our table the April Journal with its cover theme, "The voice within that keeps children safe." That article was like a prayer for our family and the neighbors who were lending a hand. One neighbor became very upset and feared the worst for our son. I told her of the healing I had just read about, and how the woman had prayed for her child who was in danger.
Within a half an hour of this prayer, our son returned home, safe. He had been at a new friend's house, and the family thought that we knew of his whereabouts. Please know that the healing ideas in this magazine helped not only a little family to trust God, but the neighborhood as well. We have shared copies of the Journal with our neighbors and the kind policeman.
Malvern, Pennsylvania
Beyond the inspiring articles in the March Journal, I found "Who were my parents?" so helpful in praying about a news report telling of a little first-grade boy who had murdered a classmate. The Journal writer points out that no matter what our human parentage, we have "an ancestry outside the flesh" [and] "we come to see that our thoughts, actions, and lives are actually born of Spirit, God ..." This helped me to purify my thinking and to love that specific six-year-old—and all the world's children—in a more healing way.
Pinehurst, North Carolina
