Editorial November 30, 1907 Issue

THE LOVE THAT HELPS

John B. Willis

"I simply can't do it. I've tried my best to think there's nothing the matter with him, but I can't be indifferent to his condition. I love him too much. I can't help being troubled and anxious."

She was a fond, faithful mother, and the quivering of her lips, as she spoke, told of a throbbing heart and of the wearisome but unrelaxed devotion of many a long day and night. "Well," said her friend, "do you suppose God wants you to try to think that human conditions are ideal when they are not? Would He have us ignore the things that ought to be righted? Let us recall Jesus' attitude toward abnormity. When he met the man with a withered hand, and was questioned as to the legitimacy of his Sabbath healing. he asked who among them, if his one sheep should fall into a pit on the Sabbath, would not straightway pull him out. He did not say there could be no accident to a sheep, nor that the man's hand was not withered, to human sense, but knowing the falsity of the material belief in which abnormity finds its birth and sustenance, he could effectively deny the power and dominion of that belief, and so he said to the afflicted man, 'Stretch forth thine hand,' and he did it.

"Your love for this little one impels you to think of him in a way that you are sure is not to his advantage, and if this be true, are you loving as God would have you and as your boy needs that you should? God surely wants us to love our children, and in a way that will not hinder, but rather help them. Said Jesus, 'As the Father hath loved me, so have I loved you: continue ye in my love.' Long before, a prophet had declared the nature of the Father's love when he wrote. 'I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the Lord, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, ... For I am with thee, ... to save thee.' Jesus came, reflecting this healing, peace-giving Love, and we are to do likewise. Material sense is tempting you to declare not simply for the appearance of these abnormal conditions, but for their reality, and if you accept its testimony you will of course stand for and support the asserted law of disease, of which your little one's suffering is an expression. This asserted law of disease is not for your child, but against him. What think you, therefore? Is your love for him wise and worthy? Is it genuine and true if it leads you to pursue a course which strengthens and sustains the assault of his enemies? Think of it! And think how readily you can give up these disabling thoughts when you perceive the truth about them, namely, that they are not of God, not good, and that in so far as you are entertaining them you are hampering this dear one whom you long to help. You want to be wise and true. but you do not know how, and it is just here that Christian Science will prove an unmeasured blessing to you, as it has to many another mother.

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THE LOVE THAT HELPS

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