A Fresh Start
"If only I could have a fresh start. If only I could begin all over again. If only I could be healed now!"
Have you ever had such wishes? And along with them a hopeless feeling that they could never come true?
But they can come true. Right now, today, you can have your fresh start and healing, because right now, today, you can begin leaving behind the cause of your delays and failures—ignorance of God. Mrs. Eddy writes, "It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony." Science and Health, p. 390 ;
Freedom from mistakes, delays, failures, and their penalties, is implicit in the teachings of Christ Jesus. He said, "Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free." John 8:32 ;
One of the errors to go down before the right understanding of God, before the truth that makes free, is the lie that there is or can be a mistake that cannot be corrected. Or a disease so insidious that it cannot be cast out.
Take a fresh look at disease from the standpoint of the truth that makes free, and what do you find? A lot of sly lies hoping you'll believe them. But you won't, because your right understanding of God will not give to any lies about Him or you the blessing of reality.
A fresh look and a fresh start go together. They help you prove that to God it is never too late, because to God no disease, no mistake, nor any other error, is ever known, is ever real.
A businessman, struggling with a sluggish business, takes the first step toward a fresh start when he recognizes that the errors causing the slowdown are neither God-originated nor God-activated; and therefore his business, or anyone else's, that produces a needed, honest product or gives honest service cannot be penalized. Honesty in product and service has all the power of Principle, of God, behind it, and is always in brisk demand.
Young people, frustrated in their search for identity and purpose, find a fresh start when they understand that God models His man after Himself. That man—the eternal man of God's reflection—is neither rich nor poor, neither in a minority nor a majority, neither young nor old. Always, as God's image and likeness, he is spiritual, pure, upright, free. This sense of man's God-created being and its accompanying dominion stirs men to look beyond the limitations of mortality. It enables them to discern a higher humanhood with a nobler sense of man's identity, purpose, and destiny. Such discerners are the type of young leadership the world needs and will respect and acclaim.
A young man I know was called upon to prove his God-given identity and purpose. He was a member of a staff of several hundred highly trained engineers employed by an aerospace firm. In a succession of cutbacks his department was phased down to a small staff, and he lost his job. He began sending out résumés, some of which resulted in interviews but no solid offers of employment.
This went on for almost two years. There were times when he became discouraged, and fearful that his savings would not carry him through. But, as he had done for years, each morning he got up early and carefully studied the Bible Lesson in the Christian Science Quarterly.
His daily study and the help of a Christian Science practitioner enabled him to see more and more clearly that man, the real man of God's creating, and the activity of that man coexist as a unified expression of God. He saw that because God's man and God's action go together, opportunities for employment could not be hidden from him or his talents go unrecognized and unwanted. He was convinced that his capabilities were needed somewhere, and that nothing could keep him from that "somewhere." He was confident that his abilities, his place, and he himself were reflected as a unified, active idea of immortal being—of God.
And then it happened. Through a most unlikely chain of events the young engineer met a representative of a worldwide organization seeking a man with his special talents. He was engaged to fill a key position in an entirely new and fast-growing field that would provide a much-needed new type of service to mankind and also contribute indirectly to the solution of pressing environmental problems.
The young engineer is convinced that his more spiritual understanding of God gained through those disciplining days of study and prayer triggered his fresh start. He does not count those months of seeking employment as lost. In his new work he has greater opportunities than ever before to benefit mankind. This is proof to him that Christly healing goes all the way. Centuries ago the prophet Joel told of God's far-reaching promise after a plague of locusts had ravaged the harvest: "I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten." Joel 2:25 ;
Troubled marriages can have a fresh start too. They will, when husband and wife get at the root of their troubles: ignorance of God—ignorance that is made evident in such errors as infidelity, incompatibility, and loss of love and respect for each other.
Just as individuals can have a fresh start, so can cities, states, and nations in ferment have a fresh start in proportion as citizens grow in their understanding that God is the supreme Lawgiver and governor.
Businessmen, young people, job seekers, the unhappily married, and a troubled citizenry, all can come under the redemptive jurisdiction of God's healing law. Mrs. Eddy writes, "God's law is in three words, 'I am All;' and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claim of another law." No and Yes, p. 30 ;
To acknowledge God's law, "I am All," opens the door to a fresh start to being healed and to healing others as the Master healed—through understanding God, eternal Truth. To gain this understanding takes more than wishing for it. The Master set forth what it takes. He said, "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Luke 11:9 ;
"Ask ... seek ... knock." Action words these—action that leads to the fresh start, to the "it shall be opened unto you," and then going all the way in an ever better understanding of God, the understanding that heals.
There is no law of God's that says yesterday's failures and mistakes can or must be updated and recycled into our todays or projected into our tomorrows. The apostle's assurance "Behold, all things are become new" II Cor. 5:17 . applies not only to our todays but to our tomorrows as well.
In the glow of God's ever-present ever-newness, the limitations of time and its narrow brackets of too little or too much, too late or too soon, fade away. And there stand you and your timeless fresh start, each ready for the other, each rich in the strength and substance of God's radiant all-embracing love.
As did the young engineer, you may work, even struggle, for your fresh start and the healing that the fresh start triggers. But your struggle and the days or months it went on are not the important consideration. They should not be etched in thought. What is important is that you can be healed. And now.
So do not put off your healing by dwelling upon your struggle for it. Let today be your fresh-start day, your expectation day, your progress day, the day when your struggle ends—and your healing appears.
