Spiritual blueprints to build with

I was recently reminded of the healing lessons our family learned while we were building a home in a rural area. 

My husband decided he wanted the experience of building a house. So we purchased blueprints from a magazine, bought property in the country, and he took a course on building codes at the local junior college. There seemed to be three main challenges. First, people kept alerting us that we needed to plan to stay on the site every night because, in the area we had chosen, building materials would be stolen. Second, we were told that we needed to avoid the building inspector in that county as he was very difficult. Third, we realized that we had lost the only sketch we had of the finished house; all we had were the blueprints.

We tried sleeping at the homesite, but we both had full-time jobs and a small child, so we quickly recognized the practical need to stay at our current home at night. It was clear this whole project, and the challenges that came with it, needed to be addressed through prayer. 

We reasoned that home is actually a spiritual idea, an expression of divine consciousness, which embraces and cares for all of God’s creation. No one could want our new home or even need it. We carried close a hymn from the Christian Science Hymnal: 

We did feel like pilgrims, and yet we always felt “cared for, watched over, beloved and protected” by God. Never did a tool, or even one piece of lumber, go missing. Actually a number of folks stopped by and offered to help or bring us something cold to drink. We had decided to love our neighbors, as Christ Jesus encouraged us to do, and it was reflected right back to us. We were filled with love and gratitude and amazed at the support friends and strangers gave us. 

It was clear this whole project needed to be addressed through prayer. 

The second concern, that of having to deal with an annoying inspector, didn’t end up being a problem. We decided we would humbly welcome this man’s inspections as we needed all the help we could get! To this point, we worked and prayed with lines on page 87 of Mary Baker Eddy’s Retrospection and Introspection. She states, “Genuine Christian Scientists are, or should be, the most systematic and law-abiding people on earth, because their religion demands implicit adherence to fixed rules, in the orderly demonstration thereof.” The practice of loving our neighbors included the inspector, and we expected the inspection process to go well. This was to me an instance of following the spirit of the sixth tenet, given in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy: “And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure” (p. 497). We listened carefully to this experienced builder, and it served us well when many years later the home easily passed inspection when it sold. 

At times when I felt overwhelmed with work, it came to me to review the Beatitudes from Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew, chaps. 5—7). The word “Blessed,” which frequently appears in this sermon, assured me that happiness could not be taken from us because it was spiritual and based on spiritual substance, not on a reliance on material circumstances or in the pursuit of anything but a devotion to God. 

If I felt defeated, I would stop work and review each beatitude to check if I was living it. If not, I would strive to keep it foremost in thought, which gave me plenty to think about. I particularly worked with “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matthew 5:8). I wanted to see God’s purity in everything we did and every person we met. This proved to be a happy habit with wonderful blessings.

The challenge of our having no sketch of the finished house was handled in prayer every day when doubt tried to creep in. I thought of Isaiah 28:10, “For precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, and there a little.” For us this meant following the blueprints steadily and consistently, with a sense of order and not doubting, knowing that God’s ever-present divine order would be evidenced in the house taking shape and being brought to completeness. It was a life-lesson in relying on God that I still depend on today when tempted to veer off course. 

After the house was completed, we did find the artist’s sketch of the house in a trash pile. And you know what? Our house was much lovelier than the sketch, because we did not limit our vision based on that picture. I am so grateful for the direction and protection an increasing understanding of Christian Science has given us and continues to provide.