Editorial April 12, 1924 Issue

Overcoming Disappointment

Albert F. Gilmore

In the Preface to "Miscellaneous Writings" (p. ix) Mrs. Eddy, speaking of the improved circumstances in which Christian Scientists now find themselves, says: "The easel of time presents pictures—once fragmentary and faint—now rejuvenated by the touch of God's right hand. Where joy, sorrow, hope, disappointment, sigh, and smile commingled, now hope sits dove-like." Thus our Leader depicts the triumph of Truth in dispelling the shadows of material sense, which, if permitted, would entirely shut out the beneficent light of God's never failing love.

The so-called mortal mind is ever prone to sit in its own shadows. Comprised, as it seems to be, of material sense and belief in a matter-world, it knows nothing of the permanent joy and peace of divine Love's irradiance. It recognizes nothing apart from its own seeming universe of temporalities, transient and fleeting as passing clouds. Should it occasion wonder, then, that mortals so encompassed seem beset almost constantly by a sense of disappointment growing out of the inadequacy of human experience, devoid as it is of lasting joy? How often does the heart cherish within its innermost recesses a deep sense of disappointment over failure to realize some fond hope, upon the accomplishment of which one's ambition and desire have been firmly set!

Losing sight of the truth of being, or perhaps never having awakened to it, many a mortal has sheltered some poignant grief within the chalice of the heart and there nursed it until its constricting influence has overshadowed his entire mental horizon, with the result that the days which should have been filled with the sunshine of joy and songs of gladness became eclipsed and drear. As the full sunlight floods a darkened chamber, so into such a mental state comes the light of Truth revealed in Christian Science, chasing away the phantoms of disappointment with its near kin, depression, discouragement, and despair. Under the glow of divine Love, how quickly does the mental outlook change when it is learned that disappointment at most is but a fallacy, a device of seeming evil by which it would control mortals and perpetuate itself as having dominion and power!

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