Some disturbing things happened to a friend of mine when she was a child, and in early adulthood she found herself making choices that she later felt remorse about. And she wondered if those earlier traumas might be tied to some physical problems she was experiencing.
Many people who have been through traumatic events or have made decisions they regret, deal with persistent inner turmoil and a sense of being separated from good, from God. Chronic mental or physical symptoms often follow.
Something written by the Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, addresses this cycle: “The human history needs to be revised, and the material record expunged” (Retrospection and Introspection, p. 22). To revise means “to look over again in order to correct or improve” (merriam-webster.com). When past experiences result in ongoing problems, what needs revising is the sense that we could ever have been separated from God, alone and hurt. The perception of having been vulnerable to evil is corrected by understanding the unchanging oneness each of us has with divine Spirit.
It is transformational to acknowledge in prayer that at the very moment when it looked as though distressing things were happening, there was actually a deeper truth occurring. The spiritual reality is that God has always been fully present and governing His creation harmoniously, and we as God’s spiritual offspring have always been intact and whole. Whatever appears to contradict this truth is ultimately found to be an illusion with no basis in spiritual fact.
This was brought out in the Christian Science Sentinel some years ago in an article titled “Right when—right then.” Paul Stark Seeley explores how we can view traumatic experiences from a spiritual perspective and find freedom from the effects of these human events through an understanding of God and the continuity of one’s true, spiritual identity.
He writes: “Because God eternally is infinite good, there has never been an instant when any phase of evil has been able to get a foothold within this infinity. The forever universality of God’s kingdom, wherein all manifestations of God safely dwell, is uninvadable. . . .
“Right when evil claims to have a toe hold in God’s infinity, right then God is infinite and All, and man’s individuality is, as eternally, of and in Him” (May 24, 1958).
The kingdom of God this article refers to is the condition of wholeness that Christ Jesus spoke of as being within and all around us, or what he called “at hand” (Mark 1:15). The word kingdom also speaks to the reign of divine Love as sovereign—no other power is present or has the right or ability to enter and cause harm.
In the Lord’s Prayer, Jesus taught his disciples to pray, “Thy kingdom come” (Matthew 6:10). In her spiritual interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer on page 16 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy adds the word is to that phrase, making it “Thy kingdom is come”—emphasizing that the harmony of the kingdom of God is not something “out there” in time or space, but rather fully present now.
Right where human history claims to have a negative impact on one’s current well-being—on the body, thought, feelings, or circumstances—right there the material record of wrongs needs to be, and can be, expunged, or eliminated from consciousness. It takes more than human effort to do that, though. It is in prayer that we glimpse the infinite allness of divine Love and the completeness of everyone as Love’s spiritual expression. Then past woes lose their reality to us and we feel the healing truth instead.
To be still and listen to what God is communicating about spiritual reality does require that we let go of seeing ourselves as a victim of fate, of others, or of our own choices. There is no spiritual law that supports a record of material ailments, mistakes, or trauma. Rather, understanding God’s law of eternal harmony results in healing. As a sense of victimhood is effaced, memories of past suffering lose their hold, and we find present-moment freedom and well-being.
There is no spiritual law that supports a record of material ailments, mistakes, or trauma.
An example from Jesus’ ministry is recorded in Matthew’s Gospel. A paralyzed man, lying on a bed, was carried by some people to the Master. “Jesus seeing their faith said unto the sick of the palsy; Son, be of good cheer; thy sins be forgiven thee. . . . And he arose, and departed to his house” (9:2, 7).
Jesus discerned that something in this man’s past was making him feel separated from God, and that the man felt it was the source of his suffering. But Jesus understood that in God’s kingdom there is no law to support the notion that anything, past or present, can make us suffer in any way.
Science and Health explains: “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy” (pp. 476–477).
For many years I served on a volunteer search and rescue team in our mountain community, helping find people who were lost in the wilderness, rescuing the injured, and recovering the bodies of those who had not survived. At one point, after a series of difficult missions where a number of friends had lost their lives, I began to feel disturbing symptoms related to the stress of the work—insomnia, anger, intrusive visions, and other problems. This was affecting my health and well-being and my participation on the team as well as my day-to-day life, so I paused my service for a while and sought prayerful help from a Christian Science practitioner.
She helped me understand that because God is always present, I never was and never could be outside of the kingdom of God. Right when it seemed I had witnessed great harm and destruction, and that sustained anguish was having a bad effect on me, right then the unchangeable truth was that I, along with everyone involved, was whole and intact, never cut off from the love of God.
It took consecrated spiritual study and deep prayer, but I began to feel the truth of that idea and in time was able to return to work on the rescue team. More firmly grounded on a solid spiritual foundation, I was able to maintain my prayerful centeredness and be a help to other responders as well.
The friend mentioned at the beginning of this article also found her freedom after years of struggling with the negative effects of those early experiences. In discovering what was true about herself as a child of God, she came to see that those past events were not based on spiritual facts—divine reality. Since God did not make or support them, they had no power to separate her from divine Love, then or now.
The healing Christ says emphatically to each of us, “Be of good cheer. You too are made free!” You have God-given authority to revise your human history, expunge the material record, and find your freedom.
