Articles

The remarkable Old Testament story of Sarah’s servant Hagar is one worth revisiting. Difficulties in the home prompted Abraham, Sarah’s husband, to send Hagar and her son away into the wilderness with only a bottle of water and some bread.

Years ago, a friend shared with me a healing she experienced through prayer, which included a powerful sense that God was present and all was well. At the time, she remarked that the thing that stood out to her was the feeling she had.

Do you find that things which once were simple, like regularly attending church services, now seem complicated or difficult? Do you now have to face pressure from family members to sleep in on Sundays, or go away for the weekend? For a midweek testimony meeting, there might be concerns about traffic or public transit congestion, security issues, fatigue, an employer’s expectations that you work into the evening, or trouble driving at night. All this may make going to church feel like going to the moon.

In my sadness after a very dear friend passed away, I told a colleague I was dreading the upcoming Fourth of July celebration. That was because my friend—someone I thought of as family—would always invite me to watch the fireworks with her and other friends at her house.

The  Journal  is pleased to offer readers the first in an occasional column from the office of Christian Science Practitioner Activities at The Mother Church in Boston. “Pathways to the practice” is autobiographical.

The  Journal  is pleased to offer readers the first in an occasional column from the office of Christian Science Practitioner Activities at The Mother Church in Boston. “Pathways to the practice” is autobiographical.

Oh, no! There it went—my friend’s brand-new cellphone—over the side of her kayak and into the lake. The water was only about five feet deep, but the lake floor was too soft to support the weight of a person, so we four friends in four kayaks gently searched the ground beneath us with our paddles.

When a Hebrew religious leader asked Jesus, “Which is the first commandment of all?” he answered, “The first of all the commandments is, Hear, O Israel; The Lord our God is one Lord: and thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy mind, and with all thy strength” ( Mark 12:28–30 ).   That statement emphatically conveyed the foundation of the Master’s ministry.

My first memory of hearing about Jesus was my mother reading the story of the Master throwing the money changers out of the Temple (see Matthew 21:12, 13 ). I couldn’t have been more than three years old, but the story made a distinct impression on me.

In the prophetic book of Isaiah in the Bible we read, “With everlasting kindness will I have mercy on thee, saith the Lord thy Redeemer. For this is as the waters of Noah unto me: for as I have sworn that the waters of Noah should no more go over the earth; so have I sworn that I would not be wroth with thee, nor rebuke thee.