If memories would haunt you

People's lives often appear to be woven by the looms of the past. It seems that where a person has already been in his human experience tends to set the course for where he is heading. And people carry along so many memories—some that are good and pleasant, other that are not.

Among the unpleasant memories that may haunt someone and hinder his progress could be a frightening remembrance of a distressing disease or accident, even when the individual is no longer suffering physically. Also, perhaps the passing of a loved one, or a failure in one's career, or a breakup in a close relationship with another, or a sin committed years ago—such memories as these may seem at times to hold individuals in the grip of a grim past.

Certainly there is a proper sense of being instructed by one's previous experiences, learning even from mistakes and failures (and learning not to repeat them). As the Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy, writes, "It is good to talk with our past hours, and learn what report they bear, and how they might have reported more spiritual growth." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 330 .}

But if something in our past attempts to dominate our thinking, haunts us with relentless fears, or constantly embattles us with disturbing mental pictures, we need to be set free from this bondage—set free to live more useful and satisfying lives. For only as we're liberated to know the truth of our present status as God's beloved child, His spiritual image and likeness, can we really glorify our Father and fulfill His joyous purpose for each of us.

Christian Science points the way to release from the ball and chain of bad memories. It teaches that God is divine Mind, the only Mind, and that man is the idea of this one good, infinite, and omnipotent Mind. What God, Mind, knows about His creation is only good—infinite present good, the continuously unfolding good and eternality of all being. Man's only real consciousness includes the spiritual understanding of this present and immortal goodness. And man's pure consciousness, his spiritual identity, includes no past history of mortal error, disease, sin, or death.

Through consecrated prayer, acknowledging such spiritual facts, we welcome the Christ message—God's saving message of grace and truth—and open our hearts to understand more of who we really are. And we actually come to feel the presence of Christ, Truth. We feel worthy, loved, uplifted, at peace—free of haunting memories.

If one is struggling with the remembrance of a past sin, he may need to face up to it squarely. Even if a sin is no longer being acted out, we should be certain that it is not being secretly held in some corner of our thinking. Mrs. Eddy in her writings points to the need for individuals to make progress in both thought and action. In her chapter "Footsteps of Truth" in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, our Leader writes, "If mortals are not progressive, past failures will be repeated until all wrong work is effaced or rectified." And further on we are told, "The divine method of paying sin's wages involves unwinding one's snarls, and learning from experience how to divide between sense and Soul." ^{Science and Health, p. 240 .}

As we genuinely repent of wrongdoing and wrong thinking, as we purify our motives and aspirations, as we strive to do only the Father's will, we find that the snarls are unwinding. Through our regeneration we can come to understand that the mortal sense of man is not our true selfhood. The Science of Christ teaches us that the truth of man—of each of us individually—is that the man of God's creating is wholly spiritual. God's man is not now, nor has he ever been, capable of doing anything less than what God has ordained. And divine Love has never designed sin as a concomitant of the real man's being. God's nature is absolutely sinless; He knows no sin. Therefore, man, God's reflection, is sinless and knows no sin.

When we begin to realize that these scientific truths apply directly to our own experience now, the Christ gently leads us into a way of living that bears visible witness to the practicality of spiritual law. We live free of any sin we may have feared and free of the haunting degradation of past wrongdoing, because we have been redeemed and healed. We are no longer sinning. We have been made new, as the Bible puts it.

If some past disease or personal catastrophe has kept us frightened and dominated by the memory of it, we can be encouraged to see that a greater blessing awaits us even now. We have the opportunity to realize complete healing. And to be free—from not only a painful condition but even the disturbing mental image of its past occurrence—is indeed a blessing. It proves the resounding regenerative power of God's Christ to remove all limitations to our spiritual progress.

Full healing comes as we pray with the deep conviction and understanding that God is infinite cause, the omnipotent cause of true goodness—now, always, only. Disease and catastrophe have never had a cause, a source, or a place in God's holy kingdom. Therefore these errors have no place in man's being or consciousness.

There is no power in error (that which is proved untrue in Science) to frighten or to haunt the memory of one imbued with a measure of the Christ-spirit. And buoyed with the inspiration of divine Truth, we find that we're able to say with the Apostle Paul, "This one thing I do, forgetting those things which are behind, and reaching forth unto those things which are before, I press toward the mark for the mark for the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus." ^{Phil. 3:13, 14 .}

Through prayer and lives committed to serving God, we can leave behind whatever is valueless or hurtful. We can all press forward—free and healed!