Reprinted from The Christian Science Journal, June 2007
After the death of a friend in seventh grade, I carried around a feeling of sadness and guilt. I felt that I had made mistakes and let people down, and hadn’t always been the friend I could have been. The sadness became habitual. At times it took on almost an air of arrogance and became a reason not to be lively or outreaching.
During my sophomore year of college, I struggled with a dark feeling of depression. I had gotten into the habit of harshly condemning myself for every little imperfect thought or behavior. I felt overwhelmed with the appearance of evil in the world, and I was filled with a great desire to help others, yet I felt inadequate to do anything with all my imperfections and fears. Life seemed sad and hopeless.
Though I had long been a student of Christian Science and had even gone through Primary class instruction in this Science, all my prayers began from a material basis rather than a spiritual one–from “I am so small and weak” instead of “I am the reflection of God’s goodness and omnipotence.”
My attitude got so bad that one day I seriously considered taking my life. That day I finally decided to call a Christian Science practitioner to help me through prayer. Before then I had been so ashamed of how I had let these depressing thoughts creep into my consciousness that I didn’t want to talk to anybody about them. But this time I knew that I needed to be humble and acknowledge my need for God’s help.
The way the practitioner spoke to me was so comforting. She had absolute faith that I could be healed. In her fuller understanding of God’s eternal love, and of my oneness with this divine Love, she saw my wholeness, stability, and perfection. She also helped me see the powerlessness of the negative thoughts that I had been harboring about myself. And I realized that even though my view of myself seemed logically based on my own personal errors and the evil of the human condition, it had no basis in reality. The reality about who I was had been established from the beginning when, as the Bible says, “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31). This goodness was the very substance of my identity, my character.
The Christian Science practitioner gave me daily spiritual treatment, affirming that my nature was Christlike–only good. And I began to appreciate all the blessings in my life. I learned to more actively guard the thoughts I entertained, choosing to be grateful for all God’s gifts of love that come to me and everyone, instead of ruminating over what seemed negative about myself.
I also began to pray with the attitude that this depressing state of mind could be healed. There were a couple passages that really helped me during this time. The first came from an article called “God’s Law of Adjustment” by Adam H. Dickey (Christian Science Journal, January 1916). The very beginning of this article states, “Man lives by divine decree.” When I read this sentence I realized that I had been wasting my time wondering if it was worth staying alive, and whether or not I deserved to be alive, since these really weren’t my choices. I lived because God decreed it! My life had been ordered by Him/Her, and no one–not even I–had the power to destroy it. I also began to understand that my harmful thoughts were not a sign that God had given up and left me to self-destruct. Christian Science teaches that God is Life itself, eternal in Her very nature, and thus God can neither know nor cause anything unlike Her nature–including death. Good causes only goodness, and that included my life. The second passage that helped me a lot through this time was from Science and Health. In the chapter “Marriage” Mrs. Eddy wrote,
Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it (p. 57)
Her statement was familiar to me, and I have always taken it as a directive to not be choosy about who I’m happy around. Yet this time when I read this sentence, feeling like there was not an ounce of happiness inside me that I could give to anyone, I saw that these words could also have a second meaning: Happiness is a quality not of our own making–we cannot own it, or create it, or destroy happiness. Happiness is of God, and requires all of humanity to share it and to feel the joy. When I thought of it that way, I began to see all the ways in which happiness had been freely given to me. It was reaching out to my heart. Happiness to me became not so much a pursuit as an awakening and active acceptance of its presence. I started again to be diligent in declaring that my individuality is the image of divine Love, and I focused my thought on finding ways to share this Love with others. That devotion of thought was powerful and healing.After several weeks, my thoughts of suicide vanished. Death no longer held even the slightest temptation. Life became joyous. I began to feel connected to people. My days were filled with appreciation for the good around me, in my friends, family, music, and in classes at school.
The healing of depression one and a half years ago was not the result of positive thinking. My hopelessness in the most difficult times was such that I could not will myself to be happy. Instead, I had to know that God alone governs my thoughts.
A BETTER BODY IMAGE
The restoration of mental soundness brought healing to my body, as well. While I had been dwelling on my own selfish sadness, a small growth developed on my face, and it stayed a while after my initial healing of depression.
For a long time I had struggled with body image, always feeling slightly overweight and blemished. The growth added a whole new dimension of frustration to this mentality. One day when I was looking in the mirror and feeling discouraged, I realized that I had been expecting all my spiritual growth to culminate in material perfection. That had been my goal, although the purpose of spiritual study and prayer is to grow completely out of matter into our whole, complete, and perfect immortality. For a moment I glimpsed my spiritual body, and saw that it was present and intact and completely untouched by what matter was showing me–and it was beautiful! It was radiant with unselfishness and compassion, it was the very image of God. I saw that no matter what seemed to happen to my material body, my goodness or individual expression of the Christ–God’s nature–would forever be all that was real about me. The fear I had that the growth would never go away left me. Although it stayed on my face, it was less and less in my thought. One day, while traveling abroad with my family, the growth just opened up and emptied itself. When I saw this I cleaned the wound, leaving the empty shell to dry up on its own. This occurred more than a year ago, with no return of the growth. That day I knew it was grace that had healed me.
God’s love can and is reaching out to each of us and lifting us up from every pit. And every little victory with God takes us higher spiritually, enabling us to see the kingdom of heaven within us, as Jesus promised.
Because of the sensitive nature of this article, the author has asked that her name be withheld.
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