Can you imagine an aging process going on in God's kingdom, where we actually live as Spirit's immortal expression? This is exactly where we are and what we are! What would oppose our fuller demonstration of it? The suppositional mind called mortal—the exact opposite of the immortal consciousness God imparts—insists we accept its sense of life as stages of material growth and decline. But we can begin to part with this false sense as soon as we are willing to do so; as soon as we are willing to separate it from true consciousness and reject it as unreal.

"When I got over old age ..." I heard an older friend say. I thought I would never say that because I didn't think I would ever feel old. My mother had advised me to deal with old-age beliefs in my earlier years, but I put it off. What a mistake! So when evidence of aging appeared, I realized the work had to be done then.

At this point a Christian Science practitioner remarked to me, "Some people seem to catch old age." Yes, as though it were a contagious disease, I thought. This put the problem in a different perspective—as something that you need not "catch" in the first place but that could be healed if you did. How encouraging!

Right then I began to be newly impressed with the true concept of Life as God, a concept we find all through the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings. Replacing the false sense of living in matter with the consciousness that man is the limitless, spiritual expression of God is a constant effort of Christian Scientists; but now I began to feel the substantiality of Life as infinite Spirit and the shadowy nature of the mortal sense of existence. And clearly a shadow can't produce old age or any other condition. Life is before you—perfect! I thought.

I saw that we can and must steadily progress out of the material sense of life into the understanding of man's eternal life in God. There is just one route—straight ahead—until we realize we are already there and always have been.

The scientific fact is that life is never in matter, the shadow, and never ends there. The kingdom of God—the reign of Spirit, the one true Life—is eternal. Real being continuously expresses God's goodness, joy, and vigor. It never stops reflecting Mind's free, buoyant activity. It is never interrupted nor deprived of the freshness and spontaneity that characterize its divine source.

But we need to hold to the truth that divine Life is unchanging and infinite. Honoring the day of our supposed birth into matter only supports what we want to be done with—belief in finiteness and the aging process.

We read in Job: "If iniquity be in thine hand, put it far away. ... And thine age shall be clearer than the noonday; thou shalt shine forth, thou shalt be as the morning." ^{Job 11:14, 17.} Man forever shines forth as God's enlightened expression. Divine Mind doesn't know time—days, nights, years. Everything in Spirit's creation is now and always. How, then, could aging take place? Such reasoning helps destroy the belief we are aging mortals and so lessens its effect on our present existence.

As I worked at defeating the persistent effort of mortal mind to keep me in a state of depression, I would find myself wondering what it would be like to live throughout eternity. The answer came in this familiar statement of Mrs. Eddy's from Science and Health: "God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis." ^{Science and Health, p. 258.} The profound significance of this began to fill me with joy and trust. My doubts and uncertainties dissolved in the perfect assurance that more wonderful things than I could presently conceive would always be going on. And I saw that because God is the moving force in this eternal development, I had better get more closely acquainted with Him and reorient my consciousness from mortal mind's demands into the awareness of divine Spirit as the All of being.

Insidious suggestions that the body is deteriorating, that being and its faculties are diminishing, that life is ebbing, stem from mortal mind. These suggestions, entertained, can claim to be as destructive a force as the belief of disease. But every one of us has the authority to stand up boldly to such suggestions and reject them as powerless lies. And unless we do, our clear comprehension that life is unchanging and eternal may become clouded.

Another subtle suggestion of mortal mind is that the passing of time can weaken one. But our energy increases as our mental and physical activity becomes more God-directed.

It is joyful to claim our everlasting likeness to God. And it is natural to experience the freedom of God's kingdom, true consciousness. God has said to us, "I am the Lord, I change not; therefore ye sons of Jacob are not consumed." ^{Mal. 3:6.} And Christ Jesus proclaimed, "I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly." ^{John 10:10.} When we really accept truth, we can expect to experience, not decline, but greater vigor and alertness.

Just as the sprouting of plants in spring is evidence of the irrepressible exuberance of life, thoughts that perceive being to be eternal are evidence of the burgeoning kingdom of Mind. Beliefs of aging must give way as this kingdom appears.

"Jesus came announcing Truth, and saying not only 'the kingdom of God is at hand,' but 'the kingdom of God is within you,' " ^{No and Yes, p. 35.} Mrs. Eddy writes. There is in reality no other kingdom. Mind is infinite, the only Life, and this Life doesn't decline and die.

If thought has become bogged down by suggestions of aging and death, there is no time like the present to resurrect it. This is God's will for us, and He can make it happen.