Article March 26, 1977 Issue

Mother Love-A Spiritual View

FRANCES STEVENS STUART

When a mother turns to God in prayer for guidance and proper judgment, her role as a comforter and an educator becomes progressively supportive. She finds it liberating to place her child's welfare above fears, personal attachments, and personal plans. Her reliance on divine Spirit also frees her child from the effects of fear and opens the way for Christly affection to influence and bless them both.

This mother is not the one about whom Mrs. Eddy writes: "If a child is exposed to contagion or infection, the mother is frightened and says, 'My child will be sick.' The law of mortal mind and her own fears govern her child more than the child's mind governs itself, and they produce the very results which might have been prevented through the opposite understanding. Then it is believed that exposure to the contagion wrought the mischief."^{Science and Health, p. 154;}

The mother who comforts her child "through the opposite understanding"—her awareness of the spiritual perfection and unity of God and man—realizes the preventive power of divine Truth and trusts it. She supports her child's demonstration of true selfhood the best she can. She recognizes this selfhood to be a spiritual entity in God's wholly spiritual creation instead of a physical personality subject to happenstance and finite inheritances of the flesh. She aligns her care for her child with an understanding of God as Principle and follows His leadings. Her maternal affection, therefore, becomes unchanging in its stability and purpose. It has a lasting influence for good on the child as well as on herself.

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