Article December 14, 1974 Issue

Identity—What Does It Mean?

V. GILLEAN PARKER

Who am I? Where is my place? What is my purpose? Haven't we all asked these questions at some time and searched for deep, satisfying answers? I certainly have, and this search led me to find my answer.

I had been ignorantly allowing self-depreciation to make me feel that my individual place in life was of no real use or value. So one day, deeply depressed, I took myself off to a nearby lake, surrounded by dense woods. I didn't know what I was going to do. But I wasn't sure I wanted to go on living.

I had been walking beside the calm, fresh waters of the lake, absorbed in my own gloomy thoughts. Then I stood still for a moment. Around me, spring beckoned the buds on the trees to unfold their curled-up leaves and stretch them out toward the light. As I looked at them, a strengthening idea came into my thought: "Why, I have been just like those buds, all tightly closed up. What I need to do is open my heart in receptivity to Christ—the true idea of God —and to what I have already learned in Christian Science of my unity with God. I need to claim my ability to reflect the unfolding nature of my true being as sustained and maintained by God."

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