One's Blessing is Not Another's Penalty

Last autumn, my son headed off to university overseas. Being on Facebook and talking with friends, I was surprised to discover the angst and sorrow my friends were experiencing and expected to feel when their child headed to university. Several friends mentioned going into their sons’ or daughters’ room after they had left and simply sobbing on their bed.

I was delighted and excited that my son was moving into this new chapter. Yet, I knew this delight was not sufficient to counter the thought around me, and that I would be wise to take a firm mental stand.

In praying about it, the first idea that came was that ‘whatever blesses one, blesses all.” Mrs Eddy doesn’t promise us that whatever blesses one, penalises another! This was such a blessing for my son, that how could it possibly penalise me? How could I feel a sense of loss, of missing something or missing him, when this could only be a blessing? It simply wasn’t an option.

I realised as well that ‘Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need.” (S&H p. 494) Previously, divine Love may have met many of his needs through me. Yet divine Love wasn’t going to stop meeting my son’s needs, just because I couldn’t see my son! The all-knowing Mind certainly knows how to meet my son’s needs through Love, and each time the suggestion came of “I wonder if my son has thought of doing something, is getting enough sleep, enough to eat and so on”, I replaced it with gratitude that divine Love was right there meeting any need (including the ones I wasn’t aware of) right this instant.

My prayers took me a step higher too. It slowly became evident to me that my role, as before was to support him. I could support him with these truths, and that if I wished he were at home, rather than in his right place, that was actually selfish of me, and would become a mental drag for him. If I truly wanted to support my son, the best way to do it, was to firmly acknowledge his constant oneness with his Father-Mother knowing that “The Lord would hear before he called, and every need supply.’(Hymn 342)

I have felt a sense of freedom from any sense of loss, an expanded sense of being a mother and my son continues to love his new adventure.