Relinquishing Error

JESSIE OVERSTREET

Mrs. Eddy says on page 200 of "Miscellaneous Writings": "It was the consummate naturalness of Truth in the mind of Jesus, that made his healing easy and instantaneous. Jesus regarded good as the normal state of man, and evil as the abnormal."

It is well known to many that they are governed by their own admissions, whether good or bad, and that the body necessarily shows forth the result of these admissions. We should therefore be very careful as to what we admit to be true about ourselves or others. When human thinking has loosened its hold on error, error can no longer make itself seen and felt on the body in the form of disease or inharmony of any kind. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 252) we read, "When false human beliefs learn even a little of their own falsity, they begin to disappear."

Does the heart cry out because of unfulfilled longings? Have our fondest earthly hopes been in vain? Is our body in pain? If so, let us in humility examine our thinking. Possibly we are entertaining certain thoughts that have been with us so long that we feel quite at home with them, and it seems hard for us to recognize the error which is intrenched. But if we would manifest health, joy, and peace, we should find out what the error is in our thinking that is so unlike the Christ, Truth. Let us not be deceived into thinking that a right result can be had from wrong thoughts.

It sometimes happens that we learn through suffering to refuse to suffer; and this brings to thought the experience of a student of Christian Science who was suffering much in a physical way, and who had not experienced relief through the work of practitioners. At last it became clear to her that she had her own work to do. She remained faithful, working over the condition for a period of four years, never voicing the error to anyone. One day a great sense of discouragement came over her; and in her struggle for more light the thought came: I will say like Job, "Though he slay me, yet will I trust in him;" should this condition never be healed, I shall still be a Christian Scientist; I shall do all I can to heal others; I shall be kind, scattering joy and sunshine along my way, regardless of physical suffering. Thus the error was completely relinquished; and it never tried to evidence itself again. This was many years ago, and the student learned a valuable lesson.

We should refuse to feed and nourish error by being afraid of it, by repining over it, by dreading what we think it can do to us; for when we refuse to nourish error in these ways, so-called mortal mind has nothing to live on, and therefore cannot make itself seen, heard, or felt. When we seek the understanding of Christian Science as earnestly as we have been seeking ease in matter, our progress in every way will be much more rapid.

A verse by Margaret Ashmun reads:

Straining too hard, we seldom win our prize;
The bread we snatch becomes straightway a stone;
The star we covet fades before our eyes—
And what we have not loosed we never own.

When circumstances force us to pray the prayer of the penitent until Truth shines through the mists of error and shows us how far short of the Mind of Christ our thinking has been, then, as we strive more and more to bring every wrong thought into captivity, we become more loving in word and deed. We breathe a prayer of love and protection for everything that lives; and as this kind of thinking is established in us, surely we can sing with the angels.

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Claiming Our Birthright

February 11, 1928

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