Article April 27, 1940 Issue

The Gladness of Forgiving

DAISY CYNTHIA WOOD

The sweet sense of true forgiveness is balm to the troubled thought. It is joy to experience the calm that is inevitably felt when erroneous beliefs are utterly destroyed, hence forgiven. The victory over false mortal concepts—the healing of resentment, personal sense, and hate through their elimination from one's thinking—restores to human consciousness normal gladness. The humble willingness to let go of error, awake from mental darkness, and lift thought to the omnipresent light of Love brings release from suffering and establishes joy. The healing benediction of Love, cherished in individual consciousness, leaves nothing that needs to be forgiven.

These are days when tenderness and an abiding sense of forgiveness should possess our thoughts and hearts. Christianly scientific thinking blesses all humanity, dispels the shadows of mistakes, and transforms ignorance of God with thoughts which conform to His likeness. Since our Father-Mother God ever knows us as His perfect children, we can conform our thoughts to His likeness through complete forgiveness—destruction—of every argument of personal sense, maintaining in our own thinking the law of perfection. This so outshines the regrets of the past or the fears of the future that error is forestalled, and is not seen as a reality needing to be forgiven. Thus is any suggestion of discord dispelled.

Mary Baker Eddy shows us the true way of forgiveness where she says in her Message to The Mother Church for 1902 (p. 19): "The Christian Scientist cherishes no resentment; he knows that that would harm him more than all the malice of his foes. Brethren, even as Jesus forgave, forgive thou." Our precious Leader's demonstration of Christliness in overcoming attacks of misunderstanding and malice should melt any hardness or resentment in our lives if we are truly grateful for her and her gift of Christian Science. For what is resentment but a belief of hurt personal sense which would give back error for error? Through God's grace we may recognize the foe as malicious suggestion, a mistaken concept, not person. Let us refuse to admit such false argument, and realize that a lie has no intelligence, no reality, no means through which to operate, because it does not emanate from infinite Truth and Love.

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

The Gladness of Forgiving

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access