FOR ME, CHURCH MEANS a family. Church members' love for others and healing work makes church alive. This love, demonstration, and healing displayed by my fellow church members, helped my family rebuild after a fire destroyed our grocery store.
In November 2008, my parents' grocery store—and only family business—caught fire. As that store was the only source of income for my family, the next day the newspapers wrote negative news on this tragedy. When I was standing in front of the burned shop, I recalled a line from the Christian Science Hymnal: "No ill,—since God is good, and loss is gain" (Mary Baker Eddy, No. 207). With this line, I could feel that God was good and that He would never allow any harmful situation to happen to us. So, this seeming loss had to return back in gain. There was no other option. This feeling encouraged me to turn back to God and stop looking at the burned shop completely.
Although my other family members were not Christian Scientists, I called a Christian Science practitioner for prayerful support. Following the practitioner's instructions, I studied the Scriptures deeply. While I was reading the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, there was one line about how not even the smell of fire touched them (see Dan. 3:27). I understood this to mean that there were no ill effects from our incident and that our family's business remained completely intact. From the story of Nehemiah, I loved that he never gave up on building the wall to save his own people. In the same way, I was inspired to help own family by seeking all my help from God. The story of the Shunammite also uplifted me a lot, especially the sentence, "It is well" (II Kings 4:26). The basic idea, which inspired me, was the conviction of the Shunammite. She never admitted that her son was dead. She was seeking help from God, so in her own way, she never explained her problem to anyone else. After reading these passages, my tears dried and I confidently moved out of the room to comfort everyone. That inspiration has never left me.
