Have you ever found yourself dwelling on some past experience with regret and remorse, ruminating over a loss, a failing, or a discordant incident—cogitating on how you might have done things differently? This is profitless, poverty producing thinking, which would rob us of our God-given joy and keep us from accepting ever-present good.

By spiritualizing consciousness—rejecting thoughts that would rekindle discordant and unpleasant memories, and filling our minds with divine, eternal truths—we can expunge from our thinking what may appear as indelible imprints of an unhappy past. There is no sin, sorrow, or disappointment, however painful and deeply rooted it may seem to be, that God, divine Love, cannot remove, if we humbly seek His guidance.

The same Christ-power that Jesus embodied and demonstrated heals, regenerates, and brings renewal to impaired and discouraged lives today. Christian Science shows how we may gain an understanding of this healing power and its divine Principle and demonstrate them in our daily life.

A student of Christian Science looked back upon his past with some misgivings. Prior to learning of this Science, he had undergone surgery, and he sometimes reverted to reviewing this episode with unhappiness. One day, while studying the writings of Mrs. Eddy, he came across this statement with reference to Soul: "It was never touched by the scalpel nor cut with the dissecting-knife." ^{Unity of Good, p. 28.}

This awakened him to the realization that as the reflection of Soul, God, his true, spiritual selfhood had not been touched by a surgical experience, and therefore he need not harbor any memory of it. This revelation gave him a new outlook and gradually erased the baneful mental scars of an unhappy past.

Perhaps one has been holding a grievance over an inharmonious relationship, a childhood deprivation, a financial loss; or perhaps he has been feeling bereavement over the loss of a loved one. We can find in each experience an opportunity to rise higher in spiritual growth and understanding, and go forward in the knowledge that these mortal vicissitudes can have no dominance over God's beloved son, His divine image.

Newness of life can be ours now, as we claim our rich heritage as the sons and daughters of God. Putting off old, unfruitful patterns of thinking and bringing our every thought into conformity with the Mind of Christ, we put on the new man, and the beliefs of an encumbered, unhappy mortal progressively disappear. Thus we can rejoice in the spiritual truth that the only history man ever had is eternally good.

The Lord hath appeared of old unto me,
saying, Yea, I have loved thee
with an everlasting love:
therefore with lovingkindness have I drawn thee.

Jeremiah 31:3