There was a time when I was writing quite a bit for the Christian Science periodicals. I found it so humbling, and I loved sharing how I prayed and how I found inspiration through the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy’s writings. But I stopped writing when my mother passed away. I was just so deeply saddened and couldn’t shake that heavy sense of grief and loss.
Then one day about a year ago, I gave a testimony at a Wednesday evening testimony meeting at my Christian Science church. It came to me afterward: “Write that one down, submit it to the periodicals, and share it with the world.”
But when I sat down and tried to write over the next few days, the words wouldn’t come. My fingers just wouldn’t type. As I was praying about this, I opened up a book by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, entitled The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany. My eyes fell on the words, “I have only to dip my pen in my heart. . .” (p. 125). At that moment, I was so moved. And then the most beautiful angel thought came: “Well, I’m not writing with a pen, but I’m typing on keys, and I will type in the ‘Key of Love.’ ” It was the “still, small voice” comforting my thought.
All sense of myself as a mortal too weighted down with grief to write just vanished. I began to write. I wrote that day and that night, and after several days I finished the article. It was published in the November 20, 2023, Christian Science Sentinel (see “Bible inspiration and walking ‘on dry ground’ ”).
What a healing that was to be writing again! I had truly felt lost without my mother, who was a devout Christian Scientist and my very best friend, but I was lifted instantly from that mournful thought. No more mourning, false emotions, or sadness—not even writer’s block! My mother was a concert pianist, so the healing message about the “Key of Love” touched my heart beyond measure.
As I think back on that time, I know I learned many lessons. One was that every Christian Science church service is a healing service, an invitation to heal and be healed. My testimony that night certainly roused my understanding to an inspired sense of life everlasting and God’s sweet control. Another was that Christian Science is the Comforter, showing us the unreality of error, or evil, and the allness of God, omnipotent Mind. This Mind is God, governing His children with love. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Spirit is divine Principle, and divine Principle is Love, and Love is Mind, and Mind is not both good and bad, for God is Mind; therefore there is in reality one Mind only, because there is one God” (p. 330).
I also learned through this experience that Christian Science quiets any thought that claims we are separate from God, suggesting that we can’t do something. Here I’m reminded of what Mrs. Eddy once wrote to a student: “Just where mortal mind says, ‘I can’t,’ you must know, ‘I can’—for ‘I can’ is the Son of ‘I am’ ” (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, Expanded Edition, Vol. 2, p. 285). We are all held, supported, and sustained by God, never alone, lonely, nor lost in any way.
Not long after submitting that article, I was folding my laundry one day, and a little one-and-a-half-inch patch appeared amidst the clothes. I put the curious little piece aside, but after taking a closer look (and doing some online research), I found out it was the Girl Scout “Communication” patch award. I laughed out loud, as I deeply felt the powerful thought “You are able” come to me from our Father-Mother God. It turned out my son had shopped at a local thrift store, and the little patch must have gotten in with something he had put in the washing machine. I recognized it as a sweet and inspirational confirmation that I’d done the right thing.
I feel abundantly blessed to have this space to share my gratitude for Christ Jesus, for Mrs. Eddy, for Christian Science, for all those who are working today for The Christian Science Publishing Society, and for everyone who has ever contributed to and worked for the Christian Science periodicals.
