THERE'S A GREEK LEGEND that when Gordious was made King of Phrygia, he dedicated his oxcart to Zeus and tied it with a knot of complex loops and intertwinings. An oracle foretold that whoever loosed the knot would rule all Asia. Over 100 years later, when he failed to untie the knot by conventional methods, Alexander the Great took his sword and sliced the knot in half, thus meeting the challenge and establishing his right to rule.
Grief over the loss of a loved one can seem like a series of impossible knots. Our faith can feel shattered. The future may seem bleak. Yet I've found that Christian Science offers a solution that cuts through layered difficulties, and it does so by assuring us that God is absolutely in control of His universe. Christian Science asserts that God maintains all creation—including you and me—in perfect harmony, and that nothing can disrupt this harmony, despite any condition or situation that would argue the opposite. It maintains that love, comfort, and continuing good are divine qualities. And it promises that we cannot be separated from this love, comfort, or goodness, because we are one with their very source—God Himself.
Grief, or the belief that we could be separated from divine Love, God, is actually a reaction to a spurious claim to power. Another name for this claim is animal magnetism, or the belief that "evil is as real as good and more powerful," Science and Health, p.103. as Mary Baker Eddy put it. Grief stems from the lie that our lives begin with a material birth process and then arc to an abrupt halt, which neither we nor God can do anything about. But the swordlike truth that cuts through this lie is, "In divine Science, the universe, including man, is spiritual, harmonious, and eternal." Ibid., p. 114.
