Article October 23, 2006 Issue

GOD NEVER LOSES SIGHT OF YOU

BY ERIC OYAMA

MEMORY LOSS. IT'S IN THE NEWS. It enters conversations. It even started entering mine several years ago, including the private conversations I had with myself. I found myself thinking: I would hate to lose my memory. How would I know how to take care of myself, especially since I live on my own? How could I pray and help myself if I forgot about Christian Science? I shrugged off those fears, but never really specifically prayed about them.

Then about three years ago, I started experiencing random dizzy spells. They only lasted a few seconds, and at first I wasn't too alarmed. But soon the episodes became more frequent and lasted longer. When this happened, I would be filled with fear since my memory seemed to drain away like water down a sink. Sometimes I didn't know where I was or who any of the people around me were—I wasn't even sure I knew myself.

Of course this was alarming. It felt as if this problem had a life of its own, and that I was helpless to do anything. But I prayed. And the interesting thing was, I never lost sight of God's abiding love for me. Despite this blanket of fear that threatened to smother me, I began to see that divine Love's presence was always there, even though I was only faintly aware of it at first. This, in a sense, became my lifeline, since I couldn't specifically pray during the episodes. I started to see that I had a choice: I could choose fear, or I could choose to lean on Love. With each attack, it was like making this choice all over again for the first time. But I realized that I was beginning to trust Love in a deeper way than I ever had before.