THE DUTCH CALLED HER "NEW AMSTERDAM," Washington Irving dubbed her "Gotham," Frank Sinatra sang, she's "a city, that doesn't sleep." And on my first visit to New York City at age seven, I called her a dream. Through my impressionable young eyes the city was a surreal place where more happened in one minute than during the entire year in my second grade classroom back in Orange County, California. I absorbed every taste, scent, sight, and sound, from the skyward soaring concrete and glass on Sixth Avenue to the earthbound trees and grass in Central Park, and left with a new dream—to come back and stay.
Twelve years later, my dream was fulfilled. Only problem, it felt more like a nightmare than a dream. After spring semester of college in New York City, I stayed to take summer classes while my friends all went home. All alone and thousands of miles from my family, I began feeling anxious and depressed. Even simple activities, like getting out of bed in the morning, became intimidating trials.
My first instinct was to pray for myself. While reading the weekly Christian Science Bible Lessons I connected especially with a statement in Science and Health. It said, "Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts" (p. 261). In my prayer I held to the thought that God is all good, and since I'm His reflection I am all good, without a shred of anxiety. That, to me, was an example of an enduring, good, and true thought.
