My second-grade daughter and I loved to do science experiments together while I was homeschooling her. One memorable project involved understanding how clouds can affect light. It went something like this: In a darkened room, we began by inserting a clear plastic sheet between a flashlight and a piece of white paper. Holding the flashlight about a foot away from the paper, we noticed that the light shining on the paper didn't look any different because the plastic is transparent and lets the light through. Next, we placed a piece of wax paper between the light and the paper. The wax paper, being translucent, scatters the light, just as clouds scatter the sunlight before it reaches us. We could still see the light, but it had a dimmed and filtered quality to it. Finally, we inserted black construction paper in between the two, and since black paper is opaque, it blocked the light. We could see that the flashlight was still shining, but its light didn't show up on the white paper.
Like the flashlight we'd used in our experiment, I realized, God's love never stops shining.
Not long after we conducted this experiment, I ran across a passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that jumped right off the page at me. In it, Mary Baker Eddy wrote: "The manifestation of God through mortals is as light passing through the window-pane. The light and the glass never mingle, but as matter, the glass is less opaque than the walls. The mortal mind through which Truth appears most vividly is that one which has lost much materiality—much error—in order to become a better transparency for Truth. Then, like a cloud melting into thin vapor, it no longer hides the sun." Science and Health, p. 295.
