Article February 22, 1988 Issue

Overcoming through the Comforter

All of us have felt the need of a comforter. The Science of Christ is the Comforter that meets every human need.

Jeanne Guerin Bengston

"As one whom his mother comforteth, so will I comfort you,"^{Isa. 66:13.} the Bible says of God. In our human mishaps, fears, and hurts, we can turn in prayer to our heavenly Father-Mother God and be comforted. Sometimes a line from a hymn, a Bible verse (like the one above from Isaiah), or a sentence from Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy may come to thought, embracing and uplifting us. The pain, the grief, or the wrong is overcome—cast out of thought by the "Spirit of truth"^{See John 14:17.}—and we are healed. As Mrs. Eddy explains, "This spirit of God is made manifest in the flesh, healing and saving men,—it is the Christ, Comforter, 'which taketh away the sin of the world' ...."^{Message to The Mother Church for 1901, p. 9.}

Even when a problem is severe, we can stay with Spirit and Spirit's allness, just as we would turn unreservedly to a loving parent and abide safely in that parent's embrace. Christian Science comforts by teaching confidence in the truth of being— the great fact that man is spiritual, the beloved child of a loving Father-Mother God. Through scientific reasoning and trust that the image of God must be like Him—whole and perfect—we see fear and false beliefs destroyed. We sense that God, good, sends only good—only what is true and enduring—to His creation. Man, the idea, or offspring, of God, is His expression, and as the child of God inherits only good—he even inherits all good.

The healing of physical and mental ills and the destruction of sin are results of turning to God with the whole heart—with a trusting, childlike heart. As Christ Jesus said, "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein."^{Mark 10:15.} Listening for intuitions, or "angel" messages from God, divine Mind, we are given spiritual ideas that correct and counteract the evil beliefs about us, our bodies, or our behavior. The truth, or true idea of spiritual selfhood, is always comforting.