Have you ever fallen for the thought that your past determines who you are? That your physical and emotional makeup, behavior, current circumstances, and future potential are all products of your history? That concept is so prevalent in world thought that it seems to be a law. But Christian Science shows that it’s actually a falsehood, the blind acceptance of which burdens us with a wrong sense of our identity.
When I was a new student of Christian Science, there were many challenges in my life that seemed to be a result of negative aspects of my past. You could say I had mental pictures of myself to which little signs were attached: daughter of an alcoholic, divorced single parent, victim of hereditary health problems, unemployed teacher. With those pictures came consequences associated with a sense of lack. Worst of all, it felt as if there wasn’t much I could do to overcome my background or change its inevitable effects.
But each day, as I pored over the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and the Bible Lesson found in the Christian Science Quarterly, a new view of myself emerged. All through the Scriptures, beginning with the very first chapter of Genesis, we are told that God created man in His own image and likeness, and that He blessed the male and female of His creating. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “The great truth in the Science of being, that the real man was, is, and ever shall be perfect, is incontrovertible; for if man is the image, reflection, of God, he is neither inverted nor subverted, but upright and Godlike” (p. 200).
