One morning not too long ago, a relative and I were discussing the latest news concerning the coronavirus pandemic, and I asked him how he was dealing with it. Looking at him, it was clear he was gripped with fear. He conveyed he was frightened by the many dire medical predictions he’d heard and was fearful he would die if he contracted the disease.
Like so many people, he felt he had no effective means of defending himself from the pandemic other than strictly adhering to the protocols laid out by government officials, and even then he felt there was no guarantee he wouldn’t contract the virus. My heart went out to him. I wanted him, and all, to realize there is a spiritual power that is unchangeable, ever present, and able to provide protection from contagion and sickness. The Scriptures put it this way: “I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed” (Malachi 3:6).
We’re often led to believe that the physical senses alone are to be trusted to inform us of who we are and what’s going on. But Christ Jesus came to show us a new view of life and being—a spiritual view—the real, unchanging, immortal nature of God and His creation. This view of spiritual completeness and perfection, understood, enabled Jesus to definitively heal physical and moral evil. And it can heal discord of every name and nature through our prayers when we begin to grasp this understanding.
The spiritual laws Jesus demonstrated in his healing and teaching enable us to recognize what God is doing right now to bless us, heal us, save us—freeing us from the hypnotic hold evil often appears to have on us, when we feel tempted to believe that disease is as real as health, and that death is as real as life. Christian Science, which reveals the spiritual laws that underlay Jesus’ healing works, brings to light the scientific fact that man (including the true identity of everyone) is and always has been sustained and maintained by God, the forever changeless divine Principle, Mind. And, when applied with understanding to problems confronting us today, these spiritual laws are as effective now at removing fear and its effects as they were when Jesus practiced them.
One morning a number of years ago, I had a urinary blockage that overwhelmed me with fear of what might happen if normal functioning didn’t resume. I started praying, certain as I was that God truly is ever present and the source of all health and harmony. But I knew I needed to deal with the fear. I needed to be more convinced of what was true of me as created by God, than of what the material picture was suggesting.
During that day, I constantly turned my thought away from the fear-producing material evidence and worked hard to prayerfully hold in thought to what God is and what God was doing for me right then and there—governing and controlling every function of my being in perfect harmony. But with no evident relief from the blockage, or the fear, I called a colleague, a Christian Science practitioner, early that evening, who said she would immediately take up prayerful treatment, assuring me of God’s love and complete care for me.
This statement from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, stood at the heart of what I was seeing ever more clearly: “The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history” (pp. 470–471).
A change was occurring in my thought. Similar to what we read about in various places in the Bible, I was growing in a deep conviction that God would deliver me and that I was safe in His care. I knew that no fearful thoughts of being harmed by, or even dying from, this belief of blockage could ever stop me from tangibly experiencing the unchanging, inseparable oneness we each have with God, infinite Spirit, as His perfect image and likeness. That night, as this absolute conviction of God’s care for me increased, I literally felt released from the fear. I felt a wonderful sense of freedom and peace. The blockage instantly disappeared, and normal functioning resumed without pain or aftereffect.
Christian Science teaches that God is immutable divine Principle, unalterable Truth, immortal Life, unchanging Love, and permanent good, containing not a single element of evil, discord, or suffering. And this Science reveals the true identity of each of us as the pure, perfect, complete image and likeness of God, reflecting only what God imparts, which is always good.
Matter-based thinking is the source of all the despair, discouragement, and hopelessness that humanity feels, including the health, economic, and other fears that the coronavirus pandemic has generated. The answer for each of us lies in changing our standpoint to Spirit-based thinking and discovering the nature of God’s allness and goodness.
Viewing life through spiritual sense, which is innate to all of us, rather than through material perception, reveals the changeless Being that is God, immutable good, and destroys the fear that would keep us imprisoned in the finite, limited, depressing view that evil, disease, and suffering are inescapable. This transforming spiritual view reveals the opposite truth—that our, and everyone’s, permanent, forever completeness as the beloved children of God is forever cherished and maintained by God.
Sandy Sandberg
Guest Editorial Writer
