Article July 24, 1943 Issue

Reflecting God's Tenderness

GRACE E. GLEASON

"Tenderness accompanies all the might imparted by Spirit." Condensed in this brief statement found on page 514 of our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, is an expression of the beauty and power of God's loving-kindness. This single sentence is sufficient to awaken us to what is most vitally needed in our everyday practice of Christian Science. From it we learn that, no matter how powerful they may be, our declarations of Truth are made effective only through the compassion by which divine Love reaches the human heart. There is no other way of healing. God's nature could be expressed in no other means of cure.

Discerning the unlabored gentleness of God's impartation of spiritual good to man, Moses declared, "My doctrine shall drop as the rain, my speech shall distil as the dew, as the small rain upon the tender herb, and as the showers upon the grass." Only through his own trustful meekness could Moses thus behold and reflect God's tender mercifulness. In like manner Elijah found that God was not in the violent wind, the earthquake, or the fire, but in the "still small voice." So, through all the intervening centuries, men have loved God most and proved His healing presence best in proportion to their realization of His tender care for all His creation.

The icebound earth is released from winter's grip by the warmth of the spring sunshine. The drought-dried fields of late summer are best revived by the steady gentleness of abundant rain. So the harshness of "man's inhumanity to man" and the cruelty and ruthlessness of pagan philosophies and practices are to be counteracted only by the comforting tenderness of the mother-love of God expressed by His children here today.

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