Articles

Through studying Christian Science and practicing its teachings, I’ve been having what feels like a spiritual awakening. But it’s more than uncovering a sense of my own spirituality.

That question popped into my head once again. As a teacher coach, I visit many different schools within a week, and I often try to remember the outfit I wore on the previous visit to each school.

When a fishing boat leaves the harbor, it’s guided by buoys that mark the channel. These are a huge help in keeping the vessel from running aground.

Legend has it that upon noticing his body displaced a certain amount of water as he got into a bathtub, Archimedes made an important scientific discovery, causing him to exclaim, “Eureka!” One night I had my own eureka moment—in the bathtub—that involved the displacement not of H 2 O but of a false concept of my relationship to God. Earlier that day an article in the Journal titled “ God doesn’t have grandchildren ” had caught my attention.

Paul, encouraging the newly minted Christians at Thessalonica, wrote, “Ye are all the children of light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of darkness” ( I Thessalonians 5:5 ). And to the Ephesians he wrote, “Walk as children of light” ( Ephesians 5:8 ).

Over the years , thousands of verified healings brought about by prayer have been published in The Christian Science Journal, Sentinel, and Herald magazines. Sometimes, those healed will say how it’s as though whatever hardship or illness they faced—and were healed of—“never happened.

One of the beautiful teachings of Christian Science is the truth that each moment is an opportunity to know what it means to be spiritual. As God’s image and likeness, we are not physical bodies with a temporal shelf life; rather, each of us is caused and created by Spirit, God.

A deeper study of the Bible’s book of Ephesians has captured my time and thought this year. In six chapters, we read how to “put off the old man,” a way of thinking based in matter, and to “put on the new man,” thinking based in Spirit, God.

Many have found the idea that prayer heals to be a fact. Numerous lives transformed and restored to harmony, reversed diagnoses, and remarkable healings—some of which have been verified and recounted in this very magazine—attest to it.

“Abandon all hope , ye who enter here. ” Dante’s epic poem, The Divine Comedy, certainly presents an arresting image of the gates of hell.