Lena Showalter - The Christian Science Sentinel Aug. 7, 2006
As a teenager I’d been to overnight summer camp, went on a five-week school trip to Spain the summer before my senior year of high school, and even successfully made it through my freshman year away at college–all without any homesickness. So I thought a year studying abroad in Valencia, Spain, would be just as easy. And I was right–well, about the first semester at least.
September through December of 2004 was full of many new experiences as I traveled to cities throughout Spain, Greece, and Italy. School was a great place to utilize and practice my Spanish skills. I lived with a wonderful Spanish family and was assigned a great roommate from Alaska. I quickly grew close to many of the members of my study-abroad program and family. I was constantly busy, and my weekends were full of excitement. That first semester was just what I’d envisioned my study-abroad experience to be–carefree and an amazing adventure.
But in December I said goodbye to my close friends, who were not returning for the second semester, and made my own way home to Seattle for a month’s break before starting the second semester. Of course, while in Valencia, I’d missed a few material comforts like having a clothes dryer, a bigger bed, mom’s home-cooked meals, and a car. But I was a bit astonished at how much I found I had missed the relationships with people close to me–my family and friends. They knew me, understood me, and truly cared for me.
Even though I had developed a few really close friendships the first semester, I had no idea what the new semester and the group of students would bring. And within the first couple of days after returning to Valencia, I knew things were different. The excitement was gone. School was boring. And I didn’t really enjoy many of the people in the new group. I cried on the phone with my mom a few times, really wishing I’d just stayed in my comfort zone back in Seattle. I felt miserable and homesick, and there was nothing I could do about it. Or so I thought.
Although I had been raised a Christian Scientist, the last few years had been quite challenging for me and I’d almost completely shut Christian Science out of my life. Only when I really felt as if I had nowhere else to turn did I open my Science and Health or read the Christian Science Weekly Bible Lesson. In a sense, I knew I missed this spiritual study, but I was still figuring myself out and felt as if the right time would eventually come for me to include it in my life again. Little did I know, that time was here.
One day I found myself alone again in my bedroom in Spain with nothing to do. I decided to pull out a book that my sister had given me to read. She’s not a Christian Scientist, but is quite religious and had really enjoyed this book, which is focused on the 23rd Psalm. Traveling Light, by Max Lucado, is organized by chapters dealing with specific “burdens,” as he refers to them. Although some of his ideas in the book were not necessarily what I had learned in my study of Christian Science, I found it all very interesting.
At one point, I came to a chapter on loneliness, and one of the last lines turned on a light for me:
If a season of solitude will teach you to hear His song, isn’t it worth it?
This reminded me of something Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health:
Would existence without personal friends be to you a blank? Then the time will come when you will be solitary, left without sympathy; but this seeming vacuum is already filled with divine Love. When this hour of development comes, even if you cling to a sense of personal joys, spiritual Love will force you to accept what best promotes your growth (p. 266)
Immediately I knew that right then and there, in all of my loneliness and empty time, I was being presented the best of opportunities–to get closer to God.
For the next few weeks, I completely recommitted myself to prayer and studying Christian Science. I began to read the Weekly Bible Lesson, focused more on living my daily life expressing God, and began to work on my newfound spiritual understanding. Using quotations from the Bible Lesson, the book Moments of Gratitude: Quotations from Mary Baker Eddy, and a wonderful compilation of passages and hymns my mom had made for me, I created weekly thought cards that I carried in my back pocket everywhere I went.
Two of my favorite and most comforting cards were these:
Be perfect, be of good comfort, be of one mind, live in peace; and the God of love and peace shall be with you (II Cor. 13:11)
And this from Mary Baker Eddy:
Go to God, rest in Love, trust Love, the infinite, all-mighty Love, ready, waiting to comfort you, and you will find peace” (The Mary Baker Eddy Collection)
Whenever I felt lost, lonely, or sad, I would take one of these cards out, focus on the ideas, and clear my mind. The emptiness I used to feel while sitting alone in my room, I now filled by reading the Bible Lesson, looking for new quotations, or selecting something from Science and Health to read.
Almost immediately my life in Spain turned around. I started to spend more positive and wholesome time with new friends in my group, began an amazing friendship with my host brother, found new activities for entertainment that I had not done first semester, and even started working on an independent English course for my university back home.
Things turned around for me so dramatically that I could only attribute the change to one thing: my new understanding of divine Love. I learned that no matter where I was in the world, the same love and acceptance that I felt from my friends and family at home was available everywhere. I saw God’s unfaltering love shining through in the new people I met. And I realized that His expression, being infinite, couldn’t be limited to a place or a person.
I returned home from Valencia with a newfound understanding of God and a renewed interest in keeping up with my daily study and practice of Christian Science. That last semester in Spain was a gentle reminder that I could never step away from the presence and power of Love in my life.
Lena will be a senior at Western Washington University in the fall. She plans to use her degree in international business and Spanish in a career in hotel management in Spain and throughout Europe.
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