Article May 25, 1981 Issue

Make it your own

DONALD M. SWINNEY

I pronounced the words correctly. The interpretation was clear. But I just wasn't communicating the meaning of what I was reading out. Finally my speech instructor said: "Make it your own. Say it as if it's your own idea." When I did, this helped. Looking at every line as if it were my own thought, I could convey the meaning more effectively. It became natural to me.

This rule is helpful in Christian healing. When we seem to be merely reciting words in our prayers, instead of expressing spiritual truths that heal, we may need to take a fresh look at the truth we are declaring and learn to make it our own. We might ask ourselves, "Is God's harmony natural to me, or have the material senses convinced me that inharmony is real?" Our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, tells us: "Truth should not seem so surprising and unnatural as error, and error should not seem so real as truth. Sickness should not seem so real as health. There is no error in Science, and our lives must be governed by reality in order to be in harmony with God, the divine Principle of all being." Science and Health, pp. 130–131.

To make spiritual truth our own, we need to lay hold on it, adopt it as the truth of being—our being. We need to make truth the basis for our reasoning, strive to understand it, realize what it means, take a position mentally that supports it. As God's concord becomes natural to us and inharmony appears to be what it actually is—unreal and unnatural—the material discord will disappear. And it cannot reappear, because we no longer accept the discordant illusion as believable.

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