Article May 16, 1942 Issue

"The sacrifice of thanksgiving"

MARJORIE N. BUFFUM

The Psalmist declared, "I will offer to thee the sacrifice of thanksgiving, and will call upon the name of the Lord." These words caught and held the attention of a student of Christian Science in whose experience at the moment there seemed to be little for which to be thankful. Many times during the previous years a spontaneous sense of gratitude and love for God's constant, tender care had welled in his heart, and especially for the discovery of Christian Science by Mary Baker Eddy, and for the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," which she gave to the world, and through the study of which he had been healed of physical illness, moral laxity, and financial limitation.

However, a particular problem had arisen which seemed overwhelming, and which robbed the student of his inspiration and joy. Nevertheless, he tried to be faithful to what he had learned about God, and about man as God's perfect expression, while continuing the denial of evil as presence or power, because of the allness of good. And out of the darkness came the angel message in the Psalmist's words quoted above. Surely this applied directly to his present condition, because to be thankful seemed to require sacrifice; that is, it required consecrated effort. He had been calling on the name of the Lord; he had been declaring the true nature of God and man. He had been endeavoring to understand the truth of Mrs. Eddy's statement (Science and Health, p. 465), "God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind. Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth. Love," with all this statement implies for God's idea, man, in health, ability, strength, purity, and beauty. But had he been offering "the sacrifice of thanksgiving"? He saw that he had not been doing so. And why? Because he had been paying undue attention to the false evidence of the material senses.

He had made stalwart declarations of Truth, and then he had looked to see what the physical senses were contending about the situation. He had thought of God's law as fighting and overcoming untoward conditions, instead of seeing God's law as the only law, and the false condition as illusion. He saw that for him to be really thankful for the truth of being required that the material evidence be repudiated, not looked at and consulted; and if that involved sacrifice, surely it was a wholesome one, which he could readily make. This awakening led to a more consecrated study of the true meaning of gratitude, and in a short time the problem was completely solved.

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