I was on a family holiday when my granddaughter noticed that my eye was red. I thought that water had leaked into my mask while we were snorkeling. However, when we got home, a stye appeared.
In the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lesson for that week was the following passage: “Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity” (Habakkuk 1:13). This alerted me to the fact that I hadn’t always had the best view of others, including my kids, their partners, and my grandchildren. I would see a fault and then try to see that it wasn’t part of their true nature, rather than starting from the spiritual standpoint that they were already perfect (faultless), made in God’s image, as the first chapter of Genesis explains. I remembered a poem my Christian Science Sunday School teacher taught me (although now I don’t remember who wrote it):
When I see man as God sees me,
pure and upright, whole and free,
then no Adam mist nor mortal law
can keep from me what Jesus saw.
