has been a Christian Science healer and teacher for many years. Recently, asked Beverly to talk about pregnancy and parenting—in her own experience as a mother and grandmother, and in terms of the ways she's helped other parents to see the spiritual nature of their children.
I HAD JUST ONE CHILD, a son. Roy's a grown man now, with four children of his own, and I'm honestly able to say that even when I was pregnant, I thought of him as an idea—God's idea, mature and spiritual—that I'd always known and loved.
Not too long ago, we were talking and I told him that. And he said, "I've always thought of myself as an idea in Mind." That's been a wonderful spiritual insight for us both, and it's enabled us to have a close relationship that isn't hampered by mother-son stereotypes. We're friends, my son and I—fellow travelers on a spiritual journey through life.
That concept of God as Mother has helped me countless times in things I've had to face myself.
Of course, this in no way implies that people shouldn't be responsible parents—in fact, very much the reverse! But we can't think that everything about a child's development rests on us. There were many times when I had to see that Roy's real Mother was God. There is one infinite Father-Mother God, who loves us all and is responsible for the entire creation. And when we can see that, children naturally respond to appropriate direction—not just because we've convinced them through some sort of mental tug-of-war, but because this is already the truth about them as God sees it. We don't make it the truth by praying about it and by thinking about it. It already is the truth. We're only agreeing with what actually is.
When expectant parents ask me to pray with them during a pregnancy, I often ask them to carefully study Christ Jesus' Sermon on the Mount to find the spiritual qualities that are already part of the makeup of their children. See Matt., chaps. 5—7 . I ask them to make a list of the qualities, or divine characteristics, that Jesus either states or implies there. Those concepts help shape their thoughts as the pregnancy progresses.
For example, in the last passage of the sermon, Jesus says that those who heed his message are like a man who builds his house on a rock. He's bringing out that the solid ground on which to build your thinking is an understanding of God. Understand who the creator is, and who and why you are in relation to your divine creator. That understanding is the thrill of life, as I see it.
I should also add that if a child has problems after the birth, Jesus makes the wonderful point that we shouldn't look for causes in the parents. When his disciples asked him whose fault it was that a man was born blind, he said that neither the man nor his parents had sinned, "but that the works of God should be made manifest in him." John 9:3. In rough situations that come along, it's important to encourage the parents, and to help free them from the criticism of others, as well as from their own self-doubts.
WHEN PARENTS come to me with problems relating to a child and they're seeking a solution through prayer, I ask God to help us realize that the problem has never been a part of the child's spiritual identity. That's because the child's identity has existed as God's image forever, just as it's described in Genesis, the first book of the Bible. It's a false notion, this conviction that a mortal is conceived and carried in the womb, and that when it leaves the womb, it has its own physical identity. The truth God knows is that the child has always had an immortal identity. Its identity is spiritual, entirely free from any of the negative characteristics that interfere with a normal, happy life.
THE PARENTHOOD OF GOD came up one time for me when, at the age of ten, my son was sick with the symptoms of polio, which was prevalent at the time. He'd been in bed for about a week, when one night, for the first time, I had a feeling of fear. But I'd asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray for us, and I trusted this form of treatment. It came to me to talk with Roy about who his real Mother was. And I had to see that, too. So I told him that God was his Mother and that God was my Mother, too. I told him that I loved him very much, and that I was in his life to show him the motherhood qualities of God, but that they didn't come just from me. They were bigger and stronger than I was, and nothing could separate him from them. And as I left the room that night, he said with a real sense of humor, "Goodnight, motherhood." That broke the whole hypnotic fear for both of us. He was up and doing great the very next day.
The strength didn't come from a material uterus that could be tired—it came from God.
That concept of God as Mother—as my Mother, too—has helped me countless times in things I've had to face myself. Many years ago, I had what I believed was a kidney problem, and could only sleep on one side at night. It was uncomfortable, so I just thought about God's law as I lay there. I thought about the spiritual fact that there's only one kind of law, and that's God's law. There's no other law that could have an effect on me, whether a hereditary cause or some other law of disease. And then I realized that my grandmother on my dad's side had passed on at an early age with a kidney problem. I saw that I needed to pray to know that there's only one Father, and that the real Father of us all is God. I dearly love my dad, but I thought, "I did not inherit anything from people, only from God." I realized this meant character traits, too, not just physical ones.
From that point on, I prayed entirely about understanding the makeup of my character as God's idea. I didn't even get into what was happening to my body. I was so interested in this question of my purely spiritual nature. And then one day it was as if God had directly said to me, "You're very clear as to who your real Father is. But you'd better be just as clear as to who your real Mother is." I'd always thought my mom was perfect! So I almost argued the point. Something like, "But who wouldn't want to be like her?" I was missing the point.
Then I saw that my real Mother was God, not my sweet mom! So I prayed about that, and I got so clear about it that one day I was talking to Mom and I said, "Boy, it's wonderful to really see there's only one Mother, and it's God." I was so firm about it that she said, "You do like me, don't you?" I said, "Mom, you're the best friend I've got in this world. But God is my Mother." The kidney condition was healed soon after that.
Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health, "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter." Science and Health, p. 468. And in answer to the question "What is man?" she wrote, "Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements." Ibid., p. 475. Those are basic spiritual truths that give a foundation to prayer, to the worship of God.
Spiritual identity has always coexisted with God. So identity would have to be good. It would have to be pure, and include all of God's qualities, individually expressed.
FOR MANY YEARS, a lot of the expectant parents I worked with as a Christian Science practitioner employed a very fine obstetrician, whom I came to know well. I was in delivery rooms with this doctor over a 20-year period. He's now retired, but when we were in the delivery room together, he expected me to address problems that came up through prayer. He was never an alarmist, and he never said anything the mother would hear that was negative. He reached for spiritual support, and we enjoyed working together.
One time, a mother was taking longer to have the child than expected.
This same doctor was the one who would be delivering. He took me aside and said, "If I didn't know you were praying, I would give her some medication to have her take a nap. Then, I would give her something when she woke up to start things going again." He said the uterus was tired.
So I said, "Will you give me a few minutes?" And he said, "Sure." Then he walked out of the room. While he was gone, I prayed to see that the activity of creation couldn't be stopped. The natural action of the child's coming couldn't be interrupted, and the mother was eager to let the child come. I knew there was plenty of strength for the mother to support that arrival, and plenty of strength for the child to do its work, too, because the strength didn't come from a material uterus that could be tired—it came from God. The Apostle Paul wrote, "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me." Phil. 4:13.
Well, I prayed with these ideas, and in five minutes the uterus began working properly again. Shortly thereafter, the mother delivered twins. We hadn't known we had twins coming. Later, the doctor said that the husband had been calling several family members every hour on the hour and giving them bad reports. So, he said, "You were fighting that whole family's fears, and me, too, to an extent"—meaning his medical view of the case. But he acknowledged the power of prayer. He gave us the opportunity to work things through with prayer. I consider him one of the best friends I've ever had.
You'll always be happy when you can feel how close you are to God, because your identity comes from God—and only from God. You're not all tangled up with human heredity problems. Your real Father-Mother is God.
