Anna - Christian Science Sentinel, Nov. 5, 2007
My school days are jam-packed with activity.
Before the sun is even up in the morning, I’m off to school where I scurry from one class to the next. When the bell rings at the end of the school day, I hop in the car to get a ride home, ready for another schedule of events—sometimes soccer practice, ballet class, or a piano lesson, doing my homework in between. Even though it can be tempting to find the incessant bustle and buzz of my busy days exhausting, my reliance on God for strength and intelligence provides me with an endless source of energy.
I’ve learned in Sunday School that I precisely reflect all of God’s qualities, like a still lake brilliantly reflects the moon shining in the night. God is the Creator and Governor of His own universe. And each one of His ideas, including me, is guided on His perfect path. Undoubtedly, God has a good plan for all of His children. I’ve proved this in my life when I’ve experienced healing from sickness and fear, through my study of Christian Science. I like the countless stories in the Bible that tell how God helps and guides His children every step of the way.
For instance, God helped Noah build the huge ark, and God guided Moses while he saved the children of Israel from slavery in Egypt. God didn’t abandon Daniel in the lions’ den, or leave Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego helpless in the fiery furnace. These stories comfort me because they verify God’s trustworthiness. My mom often tells me when I become stressed out with a situation that there is no need to get upset, because I already know the outcome of prayer—harmony.
There have been many times when I’ve prayed to feel God’s law of perfect harmony in action. For example, in years past, I’d had a different spring break time from my brother and sister, since we went to different schools. Because my family often planned trips during this time when my school was still in session, I’d sometimes have to miss about a week of classes. This was no problem when I was younger, but as I grew up and school got more demanding, missing a week of school became difficult. This past spring, I tried to work ahead as much as I could so that I could have a good time with my family and not worry. But at the last minute our plans changed, and I learned that I would not only have to miss yet another day of school but a busy weekend filled with sports and musical activities.
As I prepared for the trip, I worried the entire time about how I’d survive the massive amounts of makeup work I’d have to face when I got home. After a couple of days on the trip, with this worry and concern in my mind, fear really began to creep in. I thought about everything on my plate: soccer games, an upcoming piano competition, a ballet performance, my eighth-grade musical, finals—all, of course, layered on top of my normal homework. From a logical point of view, it seemed impossible to complete all of these commitments that were coming up in the next two months.
How would I handle it?
When the stress and anxiety became too much one evening, I went to my mom to tell her how I was feeling. We talked for a while about what was spiritually true about the situation. My mom and I prayed together. We started by thinking more about God. We switched our viewpoint; instead of looking at the situation with foggy, cluttered, and materially limiting thoughts in our heads, we chose to see it spiritually clearly—through God’s eyes. I liked this quote from Science and Health: “The realization that all inharmony is unreal brings objects and thoughts into human view in their true light, and presents them as beautiful and immortal. Harmony in man is as real and immortal as in music. Discord is unreal and mortal” (p. 276).
I pondered what God was really doing for me right at that moment. Was He, my loving Father, going to throw impossible amounts of unmanageable work with an expectation of failure at me, His reflection? Or would He lovingly guide every challenge, knowing that I would succeed? I chose to think about succeeding, because that’s what happened to people in the Bible who listened for God to reveal His thoughts to them. After praying in this way, I was able to feel with confidence that harmony would prevail. And it did.
As I stuck to these comforting thoughts of God’s calm and orderly reality throughout the rest ofmy vacation and the following weeks at home, any anxiety I was feeling melted away. Everything I needed to do was done simply. I caught up with schoolwork within a week or so. The school musical was fantastic. And I did very well in both my piano competition and my ballet performance. My finals and homework were completed with ease, as I constantly relied on God, my sure Protector. Now I’ve begun a new school year. And I continue to pray to see that His planning is perfect. Because of this,we don’t have to constantly suffer from school stress.