Editorial March 10, 1986 Issue

Challenge the imposition of a broken heart

BARBARA-JEAN STINSON

Have you ever felt so caught up in unhappiness over some heartbreaking experience of your own or another's that your prayers seemed like just words?

Sometimes unhappiness serves a corrective purpose. It may indicate a genuine feeling of repentance over our sins, or it may point out that we need to grow spiritually—to adopt higher views of life and its meaning. And sometimes heartbreak may show us that we have allowed ourselves to cling too closely to another. These experiences certainly illustrate Mrs. Eddy's words in Science and Health: "Sorrow has its reward. It never leaves us where it found us."^{Science and Health, p. 66.}

Yet grief is not something to be prolonged or indulged in. It is at base an imposition on us. A dictionary defines imposition as "an excessive, unwarranted, or uncalled-for requirement" and the verb to impose as "to inflict by deception or fraud." When we realize that inharmony of any sort—both the experience itself and the sorrowful feelings it produces—is the attempt of the carnal mind to stop our spiritual progress, we have an effective way of challenging the imposition.

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