Article December 21, 1918 Issue

A Helpful Experience

FRANK A. UPDEGRAFF

In the sixty-fifth chapter of Isaiah, the man of God, after describing Jerusalem as "a rejoicing, and her people a joy," adds, "It shall come to pass, that before they call, I will answer; and while they are yet speaking, I will hear." A very helpful example of how divine Love guides, hears, and answers is related in the twenty-fourth chapter of Genesis, wherein is described the experience of Abraham's servant, when at the well outside the city of Nahor, whose prayer was answered "before he had done speaking." To the earnest seeker for Truth the Scriptures reveal many other examples of how mortals, in answer to prayer, have caught glimpses of that rejoicing so wonderfully described by the prophet and elsewhere in the Bible, and explained in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" and the other writings of our revered Leader, Mrs. Eddy.

No doubt every earnest student of Christian Science has, to some degree, experienced spiritual awakenings and healings when in times of seeming great need he has prayerfully turned to the Bible or to our Leader's writings for guidance and help. One such experience which came to the father of a young man who left home to enter the National Army, so opened his eyes to man's relationship to God that, in the hope that it may be helpful to others, it is shared with those who may have sons in the training camps or "over there." In this instance the companionship between the son and other members of the family was very loving and confidential, so that when he went away one morning to enter a training camp in a western state there was an almost overwhelming sense of separation and loss on the part of his parents.

During that day the father, whose custom it had been to lunch with the son in a down town restaurant, felt quite alone as he sat at the table across which had passed so many expressions of confidence and affection in days gone by, and after lunch he returned to his office almost overwhelmed with a sense of loss and concern for the welfare of his son. As he sat at his desk and yearningly looked to our heavenly Father for help, he seemed guided to a copy of "Miscellaneous Writings" by Mrs. Eddy, which was opened at page 150, where these words of our Leader, "Space is no separator of hearts," seemed to stand out as though emblazoned in letters of gold. As he read on through that wonderful letter "To First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Scranton," there was experienced such a sense of the close relationship between God and man that every vestige of anxiety and sense of loss was completely destroyed; and in that hour the father was able to realize to some extent the further statement in the same article, that "God is our Father and our Mother, our Minister and the great Physician: He is man's only real relative on earth and in heaven."

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