Soon after my girlfriend accepted my proposal of marriage, it suddenly occurred to me with great gravity that we would need a place to live after we were married. To a young man preparing to embark on such a big change in his life, this, momentarily, seemed daunting to say the least.
In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy tells us: “Thoughts unspoken are not unknown to the divine Mind. Desire is prayer; and no loss can occur from trusting God with our desires, that they may be moulded and exalted before they take form in words and in deeds” (p. 1). Throughout my life, I’ve found that expressing a sincere desire, coupled with entertaining pure motives, is a very effective way of praying. When I turned to God, divine Love, this way in prayer about our need for a home soon, this answer came to thought: “In my Father’s house are many mansions: if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you” (John 14:2).
I was immediately relieved of any feeling of burden. It was an instantaneous healing. Now, I don’t mean that a house suddenly appeared in front of me, but all the weight of human concern left me, and I felt a sense of deep peace.
During the next six months, I prepared my “house,” or my consciousness. I did this by expanding my spiritual concept of what constitutes a house or home, and identifying God-derived qualities that relate to it, such as order, style, function, and protection. My fiancée and I had looked at three or four houses and apartments, but we knew our prayer had been effective, and we no longer felt the urgent need to keep looking.
It wasn’t long before my future in-laws found a house that they thought would be good for us. It was one we had looked at some months earlier, but we had felt we couldn’t afford it. However, both my dad and my fiancée’s parents offered to help us, and my future in-laws informed us that they had established an account for my fiancée and had been contributing spare money to it over the years for just such an occasion. We soon had a down payment, and our offer on the house was accepted.
I continued spiritually preparing my house, my consciousness. And as I identified more Godlike qualities associated with home, such as security, warmth, and assurance, furnishings for our empty house began to come from many different people. Although the furnishings were given to us from fellow church members, relatives, friends, and colleagues independently, everything matched! When our wedding day arrived, we had a new, fully furnished and familiar house to move into. Our house became our home, and we also welcomed three children over the next nine years.
Home is available to every one of us, and is included in our existence. Science and Health states, as part of the answer to the question, “What is man?”: “He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas; . . .” (p. 475). Home is a right idea!
