We were sawing wood but weren't doing a very good job. My friend and I were using a two-man crosscut saw. I would pull my end of the saw, then push it back toward him. The teeth of the saw would catch and grind and make the job very slow. Finally my friend said, "Just pull your own end of the saw. Then let me pull mine. Don't push it back to me." I realized I'd been trying to do his work as well as my own.

As my husband and I returned home that night from our visit with this friend, the light dawned. "Just pull your own end of the saw. Let the other person pull his." This was exactly what I needed to learn in my own life.

I had been going through self-doubt, despair, and confusion. In raising two little girls, who brought an immense amount of joy into our lives, I had thought I was at every point trying to be a good mother. The whole experience with them up to the midteen years had been really wonderful.

But all at once, problems cropped up. Worldly temptations began to pull quite forcefully at these girls. And I was aghast. Where had I failed? For the first time in my life I was hopelessly depressed, feeling as though all of those years of loving and nurturing had just gone down the drain.

I guess I didn't realize at the time that perhaps these young people didn't want to be overcome by the world's temptations any more than I wanted them to be. But in my shock at having to face some of the challenges that were beginning to come up, I became totally ineffective as a helping hand. I was steeped in self-pity. I knew where I needed to look for my peace—to God. But it was a struggle, because I wanted to sit in a corner and cry. I knew, however, that this wouldn't help me, my family, or mankind.

What would I do?

As I struggled and prayed, with the support of a discerning Christian Science practitioner, gradually my thinking began to clear. I started to look to God, each day, for fresh insights into spiritual reality—what He knew of me, of those dear girls, and of the world. It was not a quick healing, that overcoming of despair; but it was an ever-increasing thing, and little by little the solutions came.

One of the most important things we can learn as parents is that God is the only Father and Mother. That He knows what His children need to know and communicates it to them. I remember waking one morning to those devilish arguments of despair. Then suddenly I realized, "You're not a mother!" But I had been a mother for sixteen years. What was this message trying to tell me? And then, what a weight was lifted! I saw the truth in Mrs. Eddy's statement, "God is our Father and our Mother, our Minister and the great Physician: He is man's only real relative on earth and in heaven." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 151;} That says it all, doesn't it? And that realization was one more step in releasing me from false responsibility.

This is where that insight about the two-man crosscut saw came in. As this deepening sense of God's fatherhood and motherhood lifted me to see man as God's expression, I became less bogged down in believing some terrible thing was going on. I saw that God is showing all of His children, in His own way, what they are and what He is causing them to be and do.

Up to this point, I thought I could remove from my children their responsibility for learning how to overcome temptation, that I could do it all for them. Then came that insight: "Just pull your own end of the saw. Let the other person pull his." It certainly was clear that when I tried to push the saw back—do someone else's work—the job was pretty well botched up. It just wouldn't work. Gradually but surely I began to learn that my children's salvation was in God's hands. Not my hands! God's hands! And as I learned this, I became increasingly free to help them when they needed help and asked for it. And they asked for it more often than they had before.

Does this mean that a person has no more duties as a parent? (Or as spouse, church member, or member of society?) Certainly not! It means that our approach to those duties is completely different, proceeding from a spiritual base. When Job, in the Bible, was so concerned about all the trouble that was going on, his friend admonished him, "Acquaint now thyself with him [God], and be at peace." ^{Job 22:21;} When the disciple Peter wondered what was going to happen to another disciple, Jesus replied, "What is that to thee? follow thou me." ^{John 21:22.} No breezy, care-nothing attitude in these directions! Acquaint yourself with God. Follow the Christ. Those are clear and forceful demands for radical demonstration of Truth, not apathetic sideline sitting.

Each of us can determine to acquaint himself with God and follow Christ Jesus' example. As I started on this, I became so wrapped up in discovering what God is and what His children are that the earth-weights of motherhood gradually dropped away. I became freer to do what God intended me to do: to witness to His presence.

One night during this period a daughter woke me; she was extremely distressed and full of despair. We talked for a long time about God's love for her and mankind. It was a precious time because we ended up feeling so embraced in God's love and laws. And we both felt this for all mankind. She went to sleep uplifted and at peace. I had been acquainting myself with God consciously and consistently, and I was at the point where I could share with my daughter this feeling of oneness with Him. What a priceless opportunity! And to the extent I have followed Christ, the same kind of opportunities have been presenting themselves to me during the past few years—with married daughters, in my church work, as a wife, as a neighbor, as a daughter.

So to pull our own end of the saw, in a spiritual sense, what must we do? We must witness to God's allness and His presence and direction for all of His children. We must acquaint ourselves so intelligently with Him that there is no doubt that He is in control. And we must deepen our understanding of what God is and what He causes man to be.

This witnessing, this acquainting, this deepening, is a holy work. And out of it come conviction, certainty, assurance— assurance that God is, in every way, at all times, in complete control of His creation.

That lifts the load, doesn't it!