One of The Christian Science Monitor's daily inspirational articles, "Endless summer" (August 31, 2001), described the peacefulness the writer felt as he sat looking out on Lake Winnipesaukee in New Hampshire and savored the last days of summer. Yet the things we love about summer, he said, can stay with us, even as we enjoy the other seasons. And this hints at the eternal life God has given us. I thought, No, we don't need to think our joy or any good can be interrupted or come to an end. What particularly stuck with me was his comment "I'm daring to accept that my true nature is as beautiful as the longest summer's day. ..." Even though I'd always felt that my real nature, "inherited" from God, had to be good because God is good, I'd never linked it with the word "beautiful." But the idea soon turned out to be helpful.
My husband and I spent the weekend before September 11 visiting friends in Santa Fe, New Mexico. The first morning, I woke up feeling very ill. I spent some quiet time praying and reading the Bible Lesson, but found it hard to concentrate. Wanting some further guidance, I opened my Bible at random. At the top of the page was this verse from Ezekiel: "I will overturn, overturn, overturn, it: and it shall be no more, until he come whose right it is; and I will give it him" (21:27). This meant, to me, that God would keep reversing the signs of sickness—even though I felt the sickness had the upper hand—until the light of the Christ, showing me the truth about myself, resulted in complete healing.
Then came one of those glimpses we sometimes need to reaffirm in our heart.
