Paul's fervent declaration, "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation" (II Cor. 6:2), brings everything into focus in the present tense. Today is yesterday's tomorrow. Tomorrow never comes.

With longing or regret we are tempted to look back. With fear or hope we peer into the future. But the time for accomplishment must forever be now. In proportion as we approach and live each day from this standpoint, today fulfills its promise. This attitude of thought makes it possible for us to use with wisdom whatever we have learned from preceding events. It brings expectancy of good and the possibility of present fulfillment.

The memory of regrettable yesterdays, together with the forebodings of tomorrow, fades into insignificance and unlimited opportunities appear to the thought which claims the results of expectancy through the overcoming of fear. When past mistakes are rectified, they can have no influence over present experiences. As fear of the future is overcome, existing situations instantly improve. The coming and going set up by mortal mind lose their seeming power to alarm or to control our human affairs. Christian Science shows that such changes, which take place in human consciousness, are possible when the truth of being is understood.

There is Scriptural authority for believing that not only fear is healed but also its effects, sickness and sin, are healed by the operation of the same divine Principle, God, and that healing takes place in the present. A healing accomplished by Christ Jesus illustrates this fact.

A man had had an infirmity for thirty-eight years. He had waited that long beside a pool for help. Jesus healed him. John recorded (5:14), "Afterward Jesus findeth him in the temple, and said unto him, Behold, thou art made whole: sin no more, lest a worse thing come unto thee."

Was not Jesus teaching in this case that healing is immediate and consists of a change of thought? And was he not saying that healing is predicated on a present and continuing reformation of thought and act?

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes in "Unity of Good" (p. 11), "Jesus required neither cycles of time nor thought in order to mature fitness for perfection and its possibilities." With a change of thought comes a change of evidence. On the same page she says of Jesus, "He demanded a change of consciousness and evidence, and effected this change through the higher laws of God."

One young woman began to understand the spiritually mental process of healing as taught in Christian Science. Her problem had long been that of looking either backward or forward. In grade school she had looked longingly toward high school. In high school she had thought college to be the ultimate goal. Once there, she longed to be out conquering the world. Having attained what should have been a rewarding position, she suddenly rediscovered the attractiveness of school days and longed for them. Then she struggled to gain recognition in her chosen profession. But even here attainment did not satisfy.

In pursuit of peace of mind, she began the study of the Christian Science textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. She came to realize that Biblical teachings are as applicable today as they were centuries ago; that everything is possible right here, right now. She set out to prove for herself that the Principle which she realized had been operating for the man at the pool of Bethesda is ever operative in human consciousness. Ruling out the false thinking of earlier years, taking a positive grip on the present, she learned to expect much of the future.

This change in consciousness altered her entire outlook. Her whole life changed. Even her occupation changed. The one in which she is now engaged is designed to help others obtain in their lives the reformation which transformed hers.

With a change of consciousness an unhappy past recedes, and a fearsome future dawns not. With the understanding of the laws of God concerning past, present, and future comes the conviction that, as Mrs. Eddy writes in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 12), "We own no past, no future, we possess only now." And she concludes the paragraph with these words: "Whatever needs to be done which cannot be done now, God prepares the way for doing; while that which can be done now, but is not, increases our indebtedness to God. Faith in divine Love supplies the ever-present help and now, and gives the power to 'act in the living present.'"