"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
A work colleague had written a book about her search for God. I ordered a copy out of curiosity but it has started me on a path. The main message I took from it is that God is right here helping us even if we feel we keep turning away and having to start again. I thought about how every time over the past five years things have got so difficult that I’ve turned to God, each time I've had a healing. It started me thinking about one of her main questions in her book - how do we love God? I thought what a wonderful friend God had been to me - no pointed comments that last time He helped me I'd just ignored Him afterwards! God’s love isn’t like that. So I thought that if I wanted to learn to love God, I needed to start by behaving towards Him at least as well as I behave towards my friends.
Our son had been unwell for several days with a cough and bad temper. He woke up completely well the morning after I prayed this way.
Then about three weeks ago I ended up on my own in the house for half an hour. I randomly opened Misc Writings and the piece I read was about how we often blame other people when we stop making progress (like Peter going fishing and not catching anything). I realised at last that I can't blame anyone else for me not making progress or being able to study and pray effectively.
I also read the New Birth - which begins with moments but goes on with days and years. I decided there and then, no more excuses! 8-9pm every day is when I'm going to study – and it's more important than work or watching television! Every day that I'm home before 8pm I've been taking the hour to spend in study and prayer, and been finding I actually feel fine to then work from 9-10pm.
This study and prayer brought me the expectation that I could deal with the ‘meaty stuff’ through Christian Science. And after that I had two weeks of ‘meaty stuff’ to deal with! I saw right away that it was animal magnetism and I was determined not to be put off.
That Friday I got a call from our daughter’s childminder to say she had put a stone in her ear at school. She had been referred to the hospital where they thought she would have to have a general anaesthetic. The doctor said they couldn’t do it until after the weekend, and gave us an appointment for the next Friday. I thanked God for the time to pray about it without being questioned.
Having handled animal magnetism the week before, I saw that the idea of a stone could not magnetise me or our daughter. It was not attached to her, or mixed with her. I remembered from class about gold being unmagnetisable, and the story about the stick in the garden that looked like a snake but never was. It wasn’t even in anyone’s thinking - there was no snake! Our daughter’s behaviour had been challenging over the weekend, but overnight it changed completely and she was happy and helpful. This proved to me that I was on the right track.
On Friday we went to the hospital and she was booked in for a general anaesthetic. But then the surgeon came and was very kind, saying she would like to look in the ear first. Then she said she felt she could get the stone out if my daughter would stay still! So we started counting to help her feel calm, and the stone popped out when we got to thirty! I was able to take her into school at morning break, instead of her needing a whole day to recover.
I was so grateful that again every step had been God-directed. Our daughter said she knew that her Grandma and I had been praying for her, and said so to her Grandma when she saw her.