Article October 23, 1978 Issue

Prayer: a parental responsibility

HELEN C. MOON

What to one parent might seem to be firm wisdom, might to another seem stern domination. What to one might seem to be a liberal respect for the child's individual rights might to somebody else seem like a loose-reined lack of guidance. How is a parent to know for sure what is wise or unwise in raising a family?

Through prayer we have an all-wise God to consult. Divine Love is infinite intelligence, the universal Mind that knows what it's doing and is ever present everywhere as an inexhaustible, infallible, unseen but tangible well of wisdom.

A merely personal sense of justice, responsibility, and wisdom is limited to the variants of the personality involved: personal heritage, education, and experience. Not very reliable guides! Christ Jesus said, "I can of mine own self do nothing: as I hear, I judge: and my judgment is just; because I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me."^{John 5:30;} Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health: "The Christ was the Spirit which Jesus implied in his own statements: 'I am the way, the truth, and the life;' 'I and my Father are one.' This Christ, or divinity of the man Jesus, was his divine nature, the godliness which animated him."^{Science and Health, p. 26;}