"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 situation suddenly arose which was very distressing and caused huge tensions in our family. There seemed to be great suffering, and gallons of blame were being splashed out all over everyone. The result was that several people in the family stopped speaking to each other. Because it was impossible to communicate, positions hardened, and untruths and misconceptions couldn’t be corrected or worked through.
The hurt this caused was indescribable. The worst part was the mental part. Conversations would start up in thought, and they seemed to take over and rekindle all the pain and injustice. It seemed as though there was no way out of the pit we were in.
The solving of this problem wasn’t quick. Sometimes there seemed to be better times, but then it would all turn pear-shaped again. It was especially bad around Christmas or birthdays, when people would normally have been together. In fact there were times when it was almost impossible to remember life without this problem, or to imagine life without it in the future. It felt as though mortal mind was trying to destroy our family.
I prayed about it constantly, although a lot of the time it felt like a see-saw going up and down. But every time there was a really bad patch I was forced to go up higher to find the light. This slowly but surely began to change the way I thought about things, and I realized that progress was going on every time the challenge was greatest.
It always seemed as though I was dealing with “people out there,” but I began to see that it wasn’t really that way - I was dealing with my own view of things. I thought about all the people “out there” who Jesus had to deal with - and he didn’t get mad at them! He said, “Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do.” This was sometimes hard because I felt these people DID know what they were doing! But then I went up higher again, and saw I had to handle animal magnetism, not people. This work made me strong and cleared the air every time.
When self-righteous indignation got going, it was humility that was needed. It did take humility to see everyone as God saw them, and separate all that trouble from people. And it did become clearer and clearer that only by going to God for an answer, and letting go of human will and false judgment of others, would this ever be resolved.
I noticed a change taking place in my thinking over a period of time. The sudden overwhelming deluges of negative thought were becoming less and less. And finally the longed-for thing happened -- I realized I was completely free of all those negative feelings. They just weren’t there any more! And this was amazing, because on the surface not a lot had changed. But by this time I knew that my peace didn’t depend on anything changing except my thought, and that was definitely happening. I was truly beginning to see evil as unreal and powerless, and God’s child as the only true man.
A few months after this a circumstance arose, completely out of the blue, which was the only way in which the underlying problem was going to be resolved. It was completely unexpected - no one could ever have imagined this turn of events. Truth was at work, and no one had to do a thing to make it happen. The effect was really wonderful. Gradually the frozen channels started to thaw, and in another six months it was honestly as though all that error had never happened -- which in truth it hadn’t. The ‘miracle’ had happened. Mrs Eddy says, “A miracle fulfils God’s law...” and God’s law had been at work all along.
When you’re in the middle of something like this it can all seem so impossible. But patience, and praying in the way we are taught in Christian Science, really do have their perfect work.