At one time I frequently felt extreme pain so that at night I could lie comfortably on one side only. These symptoms reminded me of a condition that had ended my grandmother's life—my dad's mother.

As I prayed I realized my need to understand better who my real divine Parent is. I thought of The Lord's Prayer, which begins, "our Father." I saw that this meant that God is not only Jesus' Father but He is ours, too.

Then, what can we do about what are called dangerous inheritances apparently passed from one generation to another? Well, for one thing, if God is our true Parent, our inheritance is from Him, and this inheritance has to be good.

To understand this better, we can begin to know that our Father gives us only what He has to give, which must essentially be good and can never be harmful to His offspring. God is Spirit, and His offspring—our true selfhood—is spiritual, expressing Him. Sin, disease, ungodlike traits of any kind, are not from God and possess nothing of His law or power to create or sustain them.

This is where our prayers can begin as we advance and confront any condition—dangerous or innocuous—that manifests nothing of God's love and power. Christ Jesus showed that man in his true nature is God's child. Whatever inheritance comes to him is from God. Remember, too, the Apostle Paul's statement where he describes the "carnal mind" as enmity against God. Dangerous inheritances certainly fit in that same pernicious category. Since such inheritances are enmity against God, they are not friends of ours. We don't have to companion with them or entertain them in our consciousness.

Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy makes clear our moral and spiritual authority to overcome so-called dangerous inheritances. "Heredity is a prolific subject for mortal belief to pin theories upon," Mrs. Eddy observes in this book; "but if we learn that nothing is real but the right, we shall have no dangerous inheritances, and fleshly ills will disappear." ^{Science and Health, p. 228.}

Even if everyone were to believe that man is simply a material and genetic being, how could he be if man is made in the image and likeness of God, Spirit? Yet, because man is God's expression, the spiritual qualities from God that we now express tell more of what we are really made. In essence, since man in his true selfhood is made in God's image— in Spirit's image—as the Bible declares, our life consists of what God makes and maintains: His spiritual ideas.

I continued to pray and to reason along these lines. I began to recognize and to appreciate ennobling, God-derived qualities in all the members of my family. I became increasingly aware that those very qualities originated in our common Parent, God. Whatever appeared to be a dangerous inheritance, be it a disease or some inappropriate trait of character, actually had no true origin at all. This is true for every member of the family of man.

One question that occurred to me was, "What is it that seems to cause dangerous inheritances? Is it that for generations people have accepted disease, believing they had no recourse or escape?" With this in mind, I came across another statement from Science and Health that helped me: "The remote cause or belief of disease is not dangerous because of its priority and the connection of past mortal thoughts with present. The predisposing cause and the exciting cause are mental." ^{Ibid., p. 178.} Well, then, I realized, the one place where my healing would occur was in my own innate capacity to know myself as God created me. From this standpoint it was easy to see that unacceptable traits of character are certainly mental. And, in order to heal the physical problem, I must see that the physical aspect of heredity was just as subject to God's regenerating law as would be any need for moral reformation. Whether or not I understood this fully at the time, I knew I could at least start curbing unfavorable characteristics by knowing who our Father is and living in accord with this knowledge.

Neither unpleasantness nor danger comes from our true Father, divine Love. Consequently, our Father's children, Mind's ideas, inherit only good, which includes good health. This meant to me that I and everyone else include, by reflection, harmonious qualities manifested in health.

During this period a gradual healing occurred as I learned to identify myself as God's child. The illness did disappear along with particular character traits that weren't good either.

Then, one day as I prayed, it was as though God said to my waiting thought, "You are clear about who your real Father is. You must be just as clear as to who your real Mother is." For a moment I mentally argued, "But who wouldn't want to be like my mother—as unselfish and loving as she." The message persisted. I listened. There was a thrill in recognizing more clearly that the wonderful qualities that I had enjoyed in my mother throughout the years were really evidence of her closeness to God. With that, I loved my mother even more, but I saw more clearly the importance of recognizing God as the true Parent— the Father-Mother—of us all.

What are the present benefits of knowing that God is our true Parent? There are two advantages.

First, regardless of the presence or absence of human parents through whom fatherly and motherly qualities have been or are being expressed in our lives, never are we separated from the protecting guidance of our Father and the lovingkindness of our Mother—they are one and the same from God. The strong, enduring qualities that can be expressed by God to us through human parents, are present to be expressed by God directly through us, too. We can see continuous evidence of the ever-presence of God's parenting Love and of our permanent relationship with our true, divine Parent.

Second, and of no less importance, as we recognize God as our true Parent, we are able to find freedom from so-called "dangerous inheritances."

Disease and discord have never been part of God or of His spiritual creation, which you and I in truth belong to. Disease has never been part of you, me, our parents, their parents, or their parents' parents. For we all have the same Father-Mother, from whom we inherit all that is inheritable.

However, what if an individual feels that he has missed out on having admirable human parents or parents at all? The marvelous fact is that each of us has the same Father-Mother as everyone else.

Each individual has the right to feel man's relationship with his divine Father-Mother. Through Christian Science we can learn how to feel and to experience this unbroken spiritual relationship. The wonderful truth is that each of us is known and cared for by our true, divine Parent.