I would like to express my gratitude for a healing of grief and loss. Ten years ago, I lost a child unexpectedly to SIDS (Sudden Infant Death Syndrome), and I wasn’t sure how I was going to go on without him. I felt beset by fear and discouragement. Then, during a moment of stillness and serenity, I felt my oneness with God, Spirit, the creator of the universe, and suddenly, everything changed.
It was a warm, sunny day, and I was on a paddleboard in the middle of a lake, wondering how I was going to survive another day, and if this life was truly worth living. My husband and I have a daughter, who was four years old at the time, so I felt as if I had one foot on earth and one foot in heaven and was being yanked back and forth between them. Not wanting to give in to this despairing feeling or give up hope, and wanting to be strong for my family, I got down on my knees to pray. I looked up to the sky and laid it all down on the line, issuing my heart’s desperate plea to God: “Father, where Thine own children are, / I love to be” (Mary Baker Eddy, Poems, p. 13).
This acknowledgment, that all children belong to God, the one perfect Father-Mother, brought a feeling of comfort that I will never forget. My heart filled with hope and a promise that I could move forward with my life, even though I had been battling dark, depressing thoughts. Next, these words by the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science from that same beloved poem filled my mind:
