Where do I belong?
Halfway through my freshman year of high school, I felt like I was all over the place. I didn’t feel like I had any close friends, and the reasons why I had chosen to go to my new school didn’t seem important anymore. I felt really out of place and that maybe my decision to attend this school wasn’t right.
After countless days and nights of feeling sorry for myself and just feeling down all the time, I realized that this wasn’t me. I’ve learned from regularly attending a Christian Science Sunday School that any feelings that pull us away from the peace and joy that we naturally reflect from God as His children are something we can defeat through prayer. These negative thoughts and feelings have no basis, since only thoughts that come from God, divine Love, are real and true and have power.
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After countless days and nights of feeling sorry for myself, I realized that this wasn’t me.
I decided to talk to my Sunday School teacher about what I was going through and try to get a more spiritual perspective on things. That Sunday, when we talked, my Sunday School teacher shared the idea that God created good and good only, so only good can be present. And because in reality there is only good, only God’s kingdom where we all dwell, there can’t be a wrong place, because there is no place where God is absent or we’re without the love that we need. This meant that if I needed to be at a different school, divine Love would guide me. Or if this school was right for me, I could be sure Love was giving me everything I needed to feel happy there.
At the end of Sunday School, we sang Hymn 565 from the Christian Science Hymnal Supplement. One of the verses reads, in part:
Truth is revealed in every place,
Throughout all time, throughout all space.
Right in this moment, doing God’s will ….
(©Peter B. Allen, No. 565, Christian Science Hymnal Supplement).
This really stuck with me because I felt like I had been struggling to find Truth and to understand what God knows about me and where I belong. But after singing this hymn, I knew that Truth, God, is always present wherever I am. I just needed to “turn on the light” through prayer and see what’s really going on by seeing things more spiritually.
I also liked the way the hymn mentioned God’s will. Because God is good, His will for me must be only good. So instead of listening to all the fears and worries that I’m not in the right place, I can know that God is guiding me and only good can be in my experience. I can also do God’s will by expressing good.
Instead of listening to all the worries that I’m not in the right place, I can know that God is guiding me.
The next day at school I held to those ideas of doing God’s will and knowing that only good is present. I prayed to see only the good and constantly express Love. I looked for the good in each person and situation, and suddenly, everything was different! As I found the good from God that was already present around me, I started to enjoy my school and made lots of new friends. I also found my best friend.
Since then, I feel like I have more trust in God’s goodness, and I continue to look for that goodness everywhere and in everyone.