You are irrevocably linked to God. The Bible says so. In the Old Testament we learn that God is the creator of all and has made man in His own likeness. You are in reality that image or reflection of God.

The New Testament quotes Christ Jesus as saying, "God is a Spirit." ^{John 4:24.} God is not material. It must follow, then, that God's reflection or image shows forth the same substance. Man must be spiritual.

Jesus knew these facts and demonstrated them daily in his own experience and in the lives of those who sought his help. He conveyed the essence of the unbreakable bond between God and man when he said, "The Son can do nothing of himself, but what he seeth the Father do: for what things soever he doeth, these also doeth the Son likewise." ^{John 5:19.}

Now, can you imagine looking in a mirror and watching your reflection walk off into the next room as you stand there? Of course not. In the same way the true idea of spiritual manhood does not have the power to separate itself from its original, which is God. In Christian Science the word "reflection" implies primitive and continuous coexistence of creator and creation.

God's spiritual universe, including all His children, does not exist in tandem with matter or as a future, sometime substitute for matter. It is the one and only creation. As reflection, man—your true individuality and mine—dwells in infinite Spirit right now.

The material senses would try to convince us otherwise, but they are charlatans. Jesus proved this. If he had believed the evidence before his eyes to be real, he could never have healed.

Because each one of us is in truth the reflection of God and His infinite attributes, each has that sense which discerns actuality. It is what Christian Science calls spiritual sense. Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, "Spiritual sense is a conscious, constant capacity to understand God." ^{Science and Health, p. 209.} By developing this sense, we can negate the evil that our eyes and ears say is threatening us and thereby bring harmony into our experience. We can see as God means us to see.

I had an experience in which a childlike trust in God's view of me produced the answer to a dilemma. As a recent college graduate operating on an ungenerous budget, I took a long bus trip to spend Christmas with relatives. Most of my bank account was spent on the round-trip ticket.

It was raining heavily when the bus made a meal stop around midnight in a large city. Thinking I had missed the call to reboard, I ran outside in the rain to my bus, getting thoroughly soaked. After boarding I discovered that my return-trip ticket was gone. Those around me searched all over for it but to no avail. Without it I had no way to get back home.

Wet, tired, and forlorn, I stared out the window as the bus pulled out into the streets of the city. The windshield wipers were clearing great swaths of clean glass. With each pass I noticed a bright neon sign on a bank called Citizens and Southern. It read, "Bank with C&S." I thought to myself that C&S could stand for Christian Science. As I watched the words flash over and over again, suddenly this inspired thought came: If you want a solution to your problem, you will have to give up reliance on human efforts and outlining, and depend completely on God's guidance.

I needed to quiet the material senses and listen for the spiritual ideas that God supplies continuously. One must turn away from matter and "be present with the Lord," ^{II Cor. 5:8.} as Paul describes it in his second letter to the Corinthians. Then good will be supplied in just the right form to meet one's need.

Science and Health explains, "If God, who is Life, were parted for a moment from His reflection, man, during that moment there would be no divinity reflected." And the following paragraph states, "But man cannot be separated for an instant from God, if man reflects God." ^{Science and Health, p. 306.} So there is never a moment when God is unexpressed, when His child stops reflecting His perfection.

I prayed to discern that God was the source of all the action in which I was really involved—not my human action but my real action as divine reflection. I reasoned that since God didn't see me as a poor mortal, I could refuse to see myself that way. I acknowledged I could not be separated in any way from the good that God is always giving to each of His spiritual offspring. I had learned in Christian Science that as God's reflection I eternally possessed everything I needed. Now that my spiritual sense had presented the true picture of man, I knew I could unreservedly "bank with C.S." The sense of burden lifted. Completely relaxed, I smiled confidently.

After only a few seconds of this prayerful relinquishing, without even looking I reached down to the sole of my wet boot and lifted up a bedraggled but complete return ticket. I had moved as if impelled. The man next to me exclaimed, "Why, you reached down as if you knew the ticket was there!" I replied, "In a way I did know. I had been praying."

The joy and relief were unlike any I had experienced before. The ticket had been there all the time, and the understanding of God allowed me to see it.

Science and Health declares, "Whatever inspires with wisdom, Truth, or Love—be it song, sermon, or Science—blesses the human family with crumbs of comfort from Christ's table, feeding the hungry and giving living waters to the thirsty." ^{Ibid., p. 234.} Who would have thought a neon sign could be so inspirational!

You need never doubt that God takes care of you. He is infinitely capable of doing just that, and you will realize this as you see yourself as the true reflection of your divine original—as irrevocably linked to God.