Article August 5, 1967 Issue

Turn to the Light

[For young teens]

EULALIE JONES

One of Steve's daily jobs was to take the trash down into the basement of the apartment house in which the family lived. This was usually done after the evening meal when the basement was dark and deserted. His Scout meetings were held in the evenings too, and he had to walk to them by himself since there were no boys his age in the building. Steve and his family were living in a foreign country, and both the people and the dark streets seemed strange. For some time he'd felt afraid whenever he had to go into dark places.

But Steve had been taught in the Christian Science Sunday School that God is present everywhere at all times. He tried earnestly to hold to this truth, but it wasn't easy to be brave as long as thoughts of fear or error kept returning.

When he talked it over with his mother one day, she pointed out that fear or error of any kind is just like darkness. Darkness in a room seems to hide the things that are familiar and so tries to make us afraid. We may even imagine we see or hear things that aren't really there. To get rid of darkness in a room, we let in the light; and with the coming of the light the darkness just disappears. We certainly don't have to get a shovel and shovel it out!

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