It is sometimes a challenge to look within and find the essence of our true identity. In one sense it is associated with individuality. Mary Baker Eddy cogently states that the scientific sense of being confers “enlarged individuality” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 265). Even a glimpse of that truth can keep us from becoming transfixed by the thought that anything can disrupt our spiritual identity. The knowledge that we are God’s pure and unadulterated idea keeps us from being paralyzed with fear, racked with doubt, or even skewered with slings and arrows of “outrageous fortune,” as Shakespeare’s famous Hamlet soliloquy relates.
On one occasion I was in my workshop repairing a machine. Without realizing it, I moved in the vicinity of a protruding hook and grazed my eye on it. I was suddenly “transfixed” with horror over the possible consequences. As a student of Christian Science, I immediately identified what needed to be addressed. First, I declared that I was not hurt, and voiced this vehemently (see Science and Health, p. 397). Second, I acknowledged that I was a perfect idea of God without “spot or blemish” (Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 197). Then the words of a familiar hymn came—”No more I suffer cruel fear, / I feel God’s presence with me here”—to wash away the pangs of any sense of hurt or the feelings of guilt over not being more careful (Minny M. H. Ayers, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 139).
Correctly identifying ourselves has a higher purpose for a God-inspired life.
