In the first chapter of Genesis, the Bible shows us all the things created by God, including light. We read, “In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth. . . . And God said, Let there be light: and there was light” (verses 1, 3). The light referred to, created before the sun and moon, is the divine light that illuminates consciousness, revealing spiritual reality. This light shows that our true beginning is not a start in time, but is in divine Principle, God. “And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness” (Genesis 1:4).
It might be said that this is the divine light that accompanied the children of Israel on their journey from slavery in Egypt to the Promised Land (see Exodus 13:21, 22). And that light accompanies us all today, wherever we are, wherever we go, and in whatever situation we find ourselves. In the Christian Science textbook, after referring to the Israelites’ journey, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “. . . so shall the spiritual idea guide all right desires in their passage from sense to Soul, from a material sense of existence to the spiritual, up to the glory prepared for them who love God” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 566).
When Christian Science came to me, I could barely understand what I was reading. I found it very difficult to grasp the truths in Science and Health. Yet little by little, my thoughts began to be filled with the light of spiritual understanding, and I began to feel the blessing of the message of Science and Health. I continued studying, and I received so many blessings and was freed from so many material beliefs or misperceptions of God and my own identity, that I treasured this message very much. I would read and reread each sentence to discern its spiritual meaning.
