When I was a kid, my sisters, brother, and I were always aflutter with excitement the night before Christmas. Early Christmas morning we would sneak downstairs to see the gifts under the tree, and then sneak right back up to our bedrooms. A large gift like a bicycle was unwrapped, and we would do a great job of pretending it was a big surprise. But sometimes, a very small gift we had hoped for actually would be a really big surprise, because the small box containing it would be in a much bigger wrapped box.
Christmas, of course, is far bigger than the giving and receiving of material gifts. It’s about what God, divine Love, freely gives to everyone—for each of us to receive freely and give freely. It can appear in very big ways or in the smallest kindnesses. For example, my mom used to say to us kids, who were each small in size, “Big things come in little packages.” It made us feel we had inherent worth and ability greater than appearances might suggest.
Everyone has inherent value and capability way beyond what is apparent on the surface. There was a man in the Bible who had been crippled since birth and saw little prospects for himself. He simply sat outside the entrance of a place of worship asking for a little something from the people coming there.
When Peter and John, disciples of Christ Jesus, saw him there, Peter told the man he didn’t have any gold or silver, but “such as I have give I thee: In the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth rise up and walk.” The Bible account continues, “And he took him by the right hand, and lifted him up: and immediately his feet and ankle bones received strength.” That wonderful gift of healing was a very big and unexpected surprise for that man, and “he leaping up stood, and walked, and entered with them into the temple, walking, and leaping, and praising God” (see Acts 3:1–8).
Peter and John and other disciples had been commissioned by Jesus to “heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils.” Jesus knew God, the universal giver of inexhaustible health and purity, had given them this amazing gift—the ability to heal. So he added, “Freely ye have received, freely give” (Matthew 10:8). And Jesus fully expected that anyone could learn how to give this gift of healing that God freely gives to all.
Just as my mom knew her children could do more than their small stature indicated, Jesus knew that all of God’s children—you and I and everyone—have abilities that far exceed human power. We are actually created by divine Love to reflect the Love that heals. We are Love’s reflection.
You see, divine Love is so big that it can’t be wrapped into a package of any size, and neither can its reflection; this Love is infinite. Reflection is thought, and the thoughts of God are what make up man’s—everyone’s—true being as Love’s reflection. We are embraced, or wrapped, you might say, in the infinite consciousness of divine Love. We are made up of the thoughts our divine Mind knows and loves—the Mind that is pure good, including no limitations, diseases, or inharmonies. This is the divine Science of being, the Truth Christ Jesus lived, and by which he healed.
This Christ Science is a wonderful gift from God to humanity, and it heals today when it is understood and practiced. This understanding comes when we open our minds to it, and welcome it into our hearts through a receptive and humble study of the Bible—along with Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, the book that explains the spiritual sense of the truth Jesus demonstrated. Through this consecrated study, accompanied by earnest prayer to understand the Science of Christ and allow it to transform us, God’s healing love is reflected in us, touching all who are embraced in our thoughts.
But what about all the material, limited, debilitating thoughts that occupy so much of human thinking—thoughts of sickness and disease and sin? Where do they come from? Well, that’s the point! Because they don’t exist in God, the infinite Spirit, Mind, or Love that fills all space, they have no actual reality. When divine Love washes through and purifies our individual human consciousness, those errors lose their reality to us and are washed away. That’s how Christian Science heals. As explained in Science and Health: “The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus’ time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation” (p. xi).
So, if we want to grow in our ability to heal by reflecting God’s love, we can start by allowing divine Love to fill our consciousness. We can let it reveal to us our own true identity and worth and the true identity and worth of others as God’s reflection. When divine Love fills our hearts and minds, we naturally value others as more wonderful, pure, and healthy than they may appear on the surface. Then, the love you express will reflect all-powerful divine Love’s healing power. In this way, God’s love can produce a surprising, but divinely natural, healing effect in your life and the lives of others.
Genuine words of appreciation, or tender expressions of forgiveness, can reflect the love of God inhabiting your heart; they can make a recipient feel wrapped in God’s love—and bring healing. Mrs. Eddy made this wise observation: “Giving does not impoverish us in the service of our Maker, neither does withholding enrich us” (Science and Health, p. 79). Divine Love just keeps giving. And the more we receive it—open the door of our thought to it—and reflect it in our own heart and actions, the more we feel within ourselves its healing and transforming power. And others feel it embracing them as well.
Barbara Vining
Editor
