Article February 21, 1983 Issue

Discovering what God has caused to be

AMY W. GATES

The version of life based on material conditions, rather than on spiritual facts of God's creating, makes existence a struggle for illusive happiness and peace. This view supposes that our lives need some added good to be complete—a husband, a wife, a child, a more challenging career, or a particular circumstance. It supposes a void in God's present fatherhood and in our present sonship.

But our happiness and peace have their base in spiritual reality, not in the fluctuations of unreality.

Mrs. Eddy writes, "A realization of the shifting scenes of human happiness, and of the frailty of mortal anticipations,—such as first led me to the feet of Christian Science,—seems to be requisite at every stage of advancement."^{Retrospection and Introspection, p. 81.} Our advancement must be advancement in spiritual maturity.