Article March 26, 1977 Issue

Meeting the Family's Needs

HELEN B. CHILDS

Elisha's spring outside the ancient city of Jericho has provided water steadily for many thousands of years. Whether the demand is a handful of water to cool a single face or a trenchful to irrigate a large garden, it has always given a bountiful supply.

So it is with the inexhaustible nature of God's giving. Whether the need is that of a dependent babe or a retired pensioner, of a teen-ager or a father responsible for a growing family, the supply God gives is sufficient for each of us. Each one can find a message of God's perpetual goodness in the biblical account of the provision made for Jehoiachin, king of Judah, by the king of Babylon: "And his allowance was a continual allowance given him of the king, a daily rate for every day, all the days of his life."^{II Kings 25:30;}

What is our part in demonstrating this sufficiency? What will meet our needs? After referring to some of the healing effects of Christian Science, Mrs. Eddy writes, "All this is accomplished by the grace of God,—the effect of God understood."^{Christian Science versus Pantheism, p. 10;} Man, the idea of God, is the emanation of all that God is. As we draw closer and closer to God, He becomes the All of our being. We understand the unity of God and man—their spiritual agreement, or the oneness of Principle and its idea.