Learning to love more

“Love more,” she said. This came from someone who made a big impact on my life. She was a sweet older woman who was a member of the Church of Christ, Scientist, I attended, and who became my next-door neighbor at one point. Often in her testimonies of healing at church, she would end with this: “You have to love more.” 

I knew she wasn’t talking about just spouting niceties to others, but expressing the pure love of God, the love that Christ Jesus taught. Her testimonies of healing included many examples, some very moving. I was left thinking, How does one love more? Particularly when losses seem so big and injustices staggering.

Later on in her life, when my church friend’s ex-husband was widowed, she let him live in a house on her property. Every evening I would see her walk down the stairs of her home and across her yard to that little house, with a bowl of freshly made mashed potatoes for him. I remember commenting to myself, “She is a testament to her words. She lives love!” I was talking to this man, her ex-husband, one day over the fence, and he could not say enough good about his former wife. In fact, he was in awe of her.

There came a time in my life when “loving more” became the bar I had to rise to. Everything in my life was turned upside down, and I believed a serious injustice had been done to me. 

As had always been my custom, I would awake very early in the morning to read the Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly and pray. I found myself holding on to this as a lifeline. During this time, I was studying and reading two to four hours a day. There were points of progress and joy. There were also moments of darkness, where finding even a glimmer of light was difficult. Sometimes I would wake up in the night crying. 

I had to press on. Slowly the light came. 

During this time, I consistently had to face the aggressive pull of anger, resentment, and bitterness, which at the time seemed so justified. But I could see that because I have no selfhood apart from God, since I am God’s beloved child, it was natural for these emotions to give way to a confident peace and forgiveness. Being more insistent with declaring the power of divine Love throughout each day helped tremendously.

God was never absent, therefore Love was never absent. 

I started to learn new things about God and gain new insights into the Bible, and I gained more of an understanding and appreciation for what Mary Baker Eddy had written. She overcame so many obstacles in her life and had repeatedly felt the sting of injustice. She didn’t sink, though. What she did masterfully was to heal injustice in her own life and in others’ lives, through her understanding and deep love of God and the truth gleaned through study of the Scriptures.

A couplet in one of Mrs. Eddy’s poems reads: “Wait, and love more for every hate, and fear / No ill,—since God is good, and loss is gain” (Poems, p. 4). I learned that when we recognize that God is All, we see that there is nothing else but His allness, and this allness is good. There is no ill to fear, there is no loss, and good goes on. There is only more to gain, because there is no limit to goodness; injustice can’t endure with the understanding of God’s allness. Love endures.

According to Abigail Dyer Thompson, one of Mrs. Eddy’s students, our Leader once said the following: “Love is the healing power. Love that is impartial. Don’t try to love an object, love everything, and see only the reflection of divine Love; that is, see the reflection of God which is loveable” (Christopher L. Tyner, Paths of Pioneer Christian Scientists, p. 51).

Seeing the reflection of God, which is lovable, is truly loving more, because then we are separating personality and worldly thinking from reflection. We are seeing the true form, the true idea, the true situation, when we see what is lovable. We see that God was never absent, therefore Love was never absent. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Let us rid ourselves of the belief that man is separated from God, and obey only the divine Principle, Life and Love. Here is the great point of departure for all true spiritual growth” (p. 91). Had God’s direction been absent from me or anyone else, ever? No! 

One article from Mrs. Eddy’s Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896 that was pivotal to my healing is entitled “Love Your Enemies,” and studying it helped break the belief that human personalities can be in control instead of God. 

I also read in Science and Health that “trials are proofs of God’s care” (p. 66). I went back and reread the paragraph this comes from several times and began to see things in a fresh way. Another part of this paragraph reads: “Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love.” 

Yes, it appeared I was going through a really tough time, a trial. This was something totally in opposition to what I knew God to be; it did not come from Him. But were there proofs of God’s care for me here? Yes! I began to see that the proofs are everything that lifts you up, thoughts and actions that save and heal; these are the higher joys of Spirit. Joy was dawning in my thoughts. 

The proofs of God’s care were that new and fulfilling opportunities began to present themselves to me, opportunities bigger than what I probably ever would have hoped to experience or realize. My life’s purpose broadened, and everything that appeared to have been tarnished at the time was polished and renewed. I began to experience freedom, and any last vestige of darkness gave way to gratitude and light.

When trials come, often disappointment sets in. This usually means that we’re believing something substantial has been taken from us, or that because things didn’t work out the way we envisioned, we don’t think we’ll be able to truly move on. But forgiveness, divine justice, renewal in relationships, can be seen throughout the Bible. In fact, you can see in the Scriptures that tribulation, hatred, fear, and anger really are temporal and cannot hold a candle to divine Love. 

I will always remember my church friend’s example and her clear voice filling our auditorium with the call to love more. It’s become a touchstone as I pray for the world.

Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy
heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind. This is the first and great commandment.
And the second is like unto it, Thou shalt love
 thy neighbour as thyself.

— Matthew 22:37–39