Article June 29, 1968 Issue

Growing Up

SHARON ANN McNUTT

Often someone who has had a healing in Christian Science concludes a testimony with a remark such as, "I am most grateful for the growth attained during this experience." Evidently he has had a needed and unforgettable spiritual awakening that will continue to prove invaluable to his outlook and well-being. We all can rejoice in the same type of growth—progressive steps in reform and understanding.

Through the study and application of Christian Science we grow in our understanding of God, divine Mind, and of man's relation to Him as His perfect idea. We see that true creation is wholly spiritual, never material. Therefore, in reality, man's individual identity does not consist of fleshly matter but of the incorporeal qualities of divine Love. The belief that man lives in or because of matter is a false concept of creation. This begins to disappear when we learn the allness of the one Mind. We can have only what God can give, and that is good. We need to understand the spiritual, inseparable relationship between God and His idea, man, and prove it throughout each day, wherever we are. This is growth.

True, spiritual growth is based on one's realizing the unfoldment of man's perfection. As man is spiritual, his development is infinite and eternal. Mrs. Eddy writes, "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis."^{Science and Health, p. 258;} From spiritual sense we gain the scientific concept of the continuing creation of perfect man by perfect Mind. Mrs. Eddy states, "Creation is ever appearing, and must ever continue to appear from the nature of its inexhaustible source."^{p. 507 ;}