In order rightly to adjust human thinking when grief or loneliness seems to prevail, it is necessary so to enlarge our concept of divine Love that we begin to see Love as all-inclusive, not as exclusive. When we confine our love to our family or those whom we call our friends, we are exclusive. We are saying of love, "Lo here!" or, "Lo there!" whereas in reality universal Love is everywhere. So doing, we limit our sense of companionship and joyous living.

We must humble that clamoring belief of mortal selfhood which demands only some particular human presence and open our thought to Love's ever-presence and its good will for all. Such an inclusive sense of love was demonstrated by Jesus. Only the profoundest sense of love could have inspired his utter self-sacrifice. One of the highest evidences of his desire to turn the thought of his followers away from the exclusive sense of personal love is to be found at the very end of his earthly career, when, looking down from the cross on his sorrowing mother and John, he said to them (John 19:26, 27), "Behold thy son!" and, "Behold thy mother!" It is further related that "from that hour that disciple took her unto his own home." Thus the Way-shower demonstrated that we can turn from exclusive preoccupation concerning one person to an inclusive love that finds Love's manifestation and comfort always at hand.

In a most illuminating fashion Mary Baker Eddy writes of this in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 304): "It is ignorance and false belief, based on a material sense of things, which hide spiritual beauty and goodness. Understanding this, Paul said: 'Neither death, nor life, ... nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God.' This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object."

Now is the time for us to turn from the exclusive love of family and friends to an inclusive love whereby we may reflect impartial divine Love and behold in some degree God's reflection wherever we are. The author has experienced the effect of this wider sense of love and can attest its results in the healing of loneliness. When lonely or saddened by the absence of a loved one, she has recalled that Love should be expressed in her experience without regard to human person. The expression of Love is not dependent on the presence of some personality but is impelled by God, and is not subject to absence or to variation. Thus she has learned not to limit love to human personalities lest by so doing she be blinded to its ever-presence.

Perhaps you say that a healing of loneliness or grief cannot be complete, since the loved one cannot be restored to you. And yet this is not true. It is only the mortal sense of person that cannot be restored to you. Your suffering may lead you to realize the futility of clinging to the mistaken mortal sense of man. That which we bury never had life. Jesus proved this when his life and identity continued after men thought they had killed his body. That which is buried is a false concept of life, returning to the dust of its own nothingness. The true sense of Love, however, is not lost, except as we appear to bury it in matter. When this sense is resurrected, we find the blessedness of Love's presence ever with us.

Our Leader states in Science and Health (p. 569), "He that touches the hem of Christ's robe and masters his mortal beliefs, animality, and hate, rejoices in the proof of healing,—in a sweet and certain sense that God is Love." When this sense comes to us, we have been healed. And we can be sure that our healing will be evidenced in appreciable ways here and now.

Many make new friendships equal in importance to the old. Many accept into their circle true kinships which bring into their human experience undreamed-of satisfaction. But this does not occur while we are still wrapped in sorrow. We should not regard the so-called laws of age or other human limitations as able to prevent the appearing of right ideas. We must be willing to be healed, teachable and humble, not merely desiring that our human personality be soothed or ministered to by a personal sense of love. Unless we have turned from an exclusive or possessive sense of love, new human relationships will be subject to the same losses as were the former ones, until we learn that we companion primarily not with persons but with ideas of the one Father.

Man, God's image, inevitably reflects universal Love. We are actually in the presence of divine Love, which exceeds in depth and manifestation all human sense of love. Do not the Scriptures say (I John 4:16), "God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him"? Let this Love be manifested in our lives with signs following of peace, joy, and satisfying companionship.

For the mountains shall depart, and the hills be removed; but my kindness shall not depart from thee, neither shall the covenant of my peace be removed, saith the Lord that hath mercy on thee.—Isaiah 54:10.