Article July 6, 1981 Issue

Children—as God sees them

MARY MONA SEED FISHER

What do we think of when the subject of children is raised? Usually happiness, inquisitiveness, innocence, spontaneity. Only these refreshing qualities? But children are also dependent, often boisterous, at times disobedient. And sometimes they are the victims of extreme cruelty.

Someone once commented on having a love for children but lacking patience with them. Isn't that an unacceptable contradiction? When we learn to see children as truly God's ideas, we will cherish and care for them intelligently. We need to make a distinction between God's children and helpless young mortals. Every human child expresses God-given qualities to some degree. To see beyond the mortal picture, we must disassociate the negative and limiting qualities from each child and accentuate the good ones as his only real identity.

Mrs. Eddy gives two perspectives on the way the Bible uses the term "children." First, the true, or spiritual, view: "The spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love." Then: "Sensual and mortal beliefs; counterfeits of creation, whose better originals are God's thoughts, not in embryo, but in maturity; material suppositions of life, substance, and intelligence, opposed to the Science of being."^{ Science and Health, pp. 582-583.}

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