Are you sure?
This bookmark will be removed from all folders and any saved notes will be permanently removed.
Afraid of heights? Who says?
Several years ago my husband and I planned a trip to the Grand Canyon, where we would ride mules down to the bottom. It was my job to make our reservations over the phone. I called, and the first thing the woman on the other end said was, “If you’re afraid of heights or large animals, you should consider doing something else on your vacation.” Uh oh! I had always been afraid of heights. As a child, I could never climb trees. As an adult, I couldn’t stand at a window in a tall building without my stomach buckling. But I really wanted the experience of riding a mule down the Grand Canyon, so I told the woman, “I’ll get back to you.”
As a long-time student of Christian Science, I have developed the habit of prayerfully and humbly listening to God for a healing thought whenever a challenge arises. What came to me now, as clearly as a voice in my ear, was: “Afraid of heights? Who says?” As I thought about it, I could see that it was a limited sense of myself that was making that claim. My human sense of self declares, “I am female, five feet six inches tall, I have brown hair, I don’t like olives, I am afraid of heights … ” and so on. But what’s spiritually true is that I am the manifestation of God, wholly spiritual and free from the limited mortal concepts that would cheat me of my freedom and my joy.
Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has a great deal to say about our true spiritual identity in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. On page 552 she writes: “Human experience in mortal life, which starts from an egg, corresponds with that of Job, when he says, ‘Man that is born of a woman is of few days, and full of trouble.’ Mortals must emerge from this notion of material life as all-in-all. They must peck open their shells with Christian Science, and look outward and upward.” Earlier in the book, she notes: “The real man is spiritual and immortal, but the mortal and imperfect so-called ‘children of men’ are counterfeits from the beginning, to be laid aside for the pure reality. This mortal is put off, and the new man or real man is put on, in proportion as mortals realize the Science of man and seek the true model” (p. 409).
Enjoy 1 free Sentinel article or audio program each month, including content from 1898 to today.
