Article December 15, 1973 Issue

SPIRITUALIZING THOUGHT

through a right attitude toward trials

JOHN LEWIS SELOVER

God cares. To someone who was facing loss and grief, Mrs. Eddy wrote, "Divine Love is never so near as when all earthly joys seem most afar."^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 290;} On another occasion she wrote, "Trials are proofs of God's care."^{Science and Health, p. 66;} The author of these words didn't pen them in the remoteness of an ivory tower. They were wrung out of experience—proven time and again in the mission of her life.

Discovery that God is Love and is always with us is basic to Christian Science, which teaches that God cares for man. It proves that man is the beloved child of his infinite Father-Mother God, divine intelligence. If you are new to Christian Science, you may have to ask yourself to trust this concept as you mentally grapple your way out of old ways of thinking to a more inspired understanding of God's ever-present love and care. If you are an experienced Christian Scientist, the reminder of God's love as a profound and simple fact may be just the angelic thought needed to stir you to the first step out of a deep trial.

It was just such an angel thought that helped me begin to work my way out of a dense cloud of anguish and self-condemnation. In my deep depression I could see no way to move forward. Late one night as I walked and worried, just at the lowest ebb of my composure I found a telephone and called a Christian Science practitioner and asked him to pray for me. He reminded me of the promise of divine Love in Mrs. Eddy's words, "In the desolation of human understanding, divine Love hears and answers the human call for help; and the voice of Truth utters the divine verities of being which deliver mortals out of the depths of ignorance and vice."^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 81;}

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