Article November 18, 1985 Issue

The Father always knows who we are

EDMONDE L. ST. JOHN

A young friend of mine thought she recognized me one day from a distance, but since I was in an unfamiliar setting, she hesitated a moment. Then the child ran toward me, threw her arms around me, and happily exclaimed, "I knew that was you! It looked just like you!"

I couldn't help laughing. However, her words kept ringing in my ears all afternoon. The incident made me think of a verse from Christ Jesus' parable of the prodigal son: "But when he was yet a great way off, his father saw him, and had compassion, and ran, and fell on his neck, and kissed him."^{Luke 15:20.}

What an interesting parallel! I thought. The prodigal had come out from an unfamiliar setting—and isn't that, in a sense, what sin, disease, and trouble are? He was heading home, where his father knew and loved him. Evil is not actually man's nature or environment; it is a false sense. God has created man pure, spiritual, perfect. And on this basis Christian Science shows that we are able—as the prodigal did—to wake up and return home, to return to the "familiar" and only real environment of divine Spirit. But God never fails to recognize the perfection of His creation. God is the loving Father-Mother of all. His perfect reflection can never be outside the focus of infinite good but must be included in it. In His sight the son can never stray from his true Parent, nor can he lose his eternal birthright. The tender relationship between God and man remains intact despite material evidence to the contrary.

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