There is a world of children needing love, and a world of mothering that is not really being tapped. That's an observation many people could make—with a certain sadness. But when Sharon Meyer, a schoolteacher, came to that conclusion, she prayed. She was convinced that this kind of imbalance is not natural to God's creation and that prayer could bring out more of God's mothering for all. In this interview she and her husband, Jim, talk with Sentinel Associate Editor Elaine Natale about some of the results of prayer in their family and in Sharon's classroom.

Elaine: What place does prayer have in your family and how do you depend on it?

Sharon: Prayer has become a very necessary part of life to all three of us. One of the ideas that Jim has shared with our son has always meant a lot to us: Going out into the world, you had better be as prepared with spiritual ideas as with the food that you feed your body. We talk about needing two breakfasts.

Jim: In a world that can get pretty busy, we've really tried to find some time each day to be quiet, to listen to God. That's a real part of prayer. Another part of prayer that's been important is having right desires from the heart when you start a day—to go forth with a wish that you'll be both blessed and a blessing today.

Elaine: People have different concepts of God. What do you feel are some of the important things that you've come to know about God and His care for your family?

Jim: One thing that's important to us is the fact that God is knowable. Every day we can receive ideas from Him that will help us that day. We've thought a lot about God as the very Principle of the universe, as divine Love. This divine Principle, Love, loves all of its children impartially. Each individual is of great value in God's sight.

Elaine: Sharon, what effect does praying have on a teacher?

Sharon: I've taught all different levels of elementary school, and normally there are about twenty-five to twenty-nine kids in my class. One of the keynotes of my teaching has been staying attuned to what God is showing me about each individual in that class. As you see the distinctness of each individual, you're much better able to hear the right ideas that meet each one of those individual needs.

Elaine: When you talk about the individuality of the children, is this something along the lines of what Jim was saying?

Sharon: Exactly. Their real individuality is spiritual. Each is established spiritually and uniquely as one of God's children.

Elaine: Do you pray for your classroom?

Sharon: I definitely do every morning. I've been so grateful for the ideas that come each day, showing me which part of that particular classroom needs a special touch of mothering or of encouragement or a sense of discipline that day.

I think one of the most useful parts of Christian Science is that it's helped me separate the wrong behavior that you often see in a classroom from the child. It is never actually part of that child's real identity. Because it's so evidently false to me in the light of what is true of God's man, the behavior and discipline problems that seem to be a part of teaching are met more quickly and effectively.

There was one particular child I can remember who jumped several reading levels in one year. And I know it wasn't primarily because of what I taught her. It was because of the fact that I believed in her and encouraged her and she rose to her natural abilities. Another child with very severe behavior problems improved dramatically. At the end of the year the behavior problems were gone.

Elaine: There are many wonderful teachers in this world who have a lot of confidence in kids and really believe in their capabilities. But you are talking about believing in and understanding their spiritual nature. This is what you're believing in.

Sharon: Yes. I think being a Christian Scientist has helped me know that these children actually have perfect spiritual individuality without fault. I'm involved in peeling away anything inconsistent with that fact. It's part of my prayer for myself to see that.

Elaine: Sharon, you've had kids that were considered slow or as having special needs in your classrooms?

Sharon: Yes, I taught in a learning disabilities classroom for a number of years. Again, one of my keynotes has been to meet those children where they are.

There was one little boy, I can remember, who had not spoken in four years of school to anybody—friends, teachers, or anyone in the school. He would retreat to the top of a jungle gym because that was the only place he could get away from everybody who was trying to communicate with him. At one point I decided I was going to follow him to the top of the jungle gym, and that's where we had our first conversation.

Elaine: Was this a great surprise to you?

Sharon: Yes. But it was such a delight because it happened so naturally. He knew that I was uncomfortable at the top of the jungle gym, and he reached out to reassure me. So it was an instance of love leading to love.

Elaine: Had you been praying about this situation?

Sharon: Very definitely. One thing that I've learned as a Christian Scientist is that there's no such thing as "no progress." You may not be seeing it clearly at the time, but I'm convinced that every prayer is part of a building toward the solution that eventually blossoms.

Elaine: What do you think was broken through there?

Sharon: I really don't know all the issues he was dealing with, but I know one I was dealing with was that someone could be insecure and fearful. I knew I had to pray to lift my own thought from that view.

Elaine: There certainly seem to be in the world around us a lot of reasons to feel insecure and fearful, especially for a child.

Sharon: But not when we recognize that each of us is perfectly maintained and formed by the Father-Mother God.

Elaine: God as Father-Mother is something that you've learned about in your study of Christian Science?

Sharon: Yes. The love that comes from the Father-Mother God does much more than human-based love can. It mothers rather than smothers; it goes beyond sympathy to healing.

In my class we sometimes play a game called "erase and replace." An incorrect math equation is written without warning on the blackboard. Students must be alert enough to spot the mistake, erase it, and then replace it with the correct answer. To me, this hints at the activity of divine Love. Father-Mother Love uncovers material errors and corrects them with healing truths.

This leads me into another experience. At one point we were trying to decide whether we were going to adopt a child or have another one of our own to expand our family. I felt a real imbalance. I felt that I had a lot of mothering to give and the world was full of children who needed more mothering. It just seemed impossible that God would not find a way for more balance to be attained. And that has happened in many unique ways, ever since I came to see that there could absolutely be no imbalance—either an excess or a shortage in God's creation. Balance is maintained always by God's perfect control.

Not long after, we had a vivid example of this. I was told by the school social worker that I would be getting a new child in the class. She said that the child was an orphan who had just been placed in a new foster home after having been abused both physically and sexually by the last people she was with. The first time I set eyes on her—I'll never forget it—I felt an immediate and very strong sense of this motherhood that I had been praying about.

Elaine: This Father-Mother love of God.

Sharon: Yes. At that point she was very scared and insecure, very much in need of affection. We soon became inseparable. I can remember my teacher friends started kidding me about my little shadow. Anywhere I went, she went.

Elaine: What grade was she in?

Sharon: She was in my third-grade classroom—the grade our son Brett was in, too. It wasn't long before I asked both Jim and Brett to pray about the idea of adopting her into our family.

Elaine: Jim, what was your response to that?

Jim: Well, I guess I was surprised at how quickly my own heart opened up to the possibility.

Elaine: Had you met her?

Jim: No. The next couple of weeks, I really prayed to understand why I'd felt that sort of ready, immediate willingness to consider this. What I saw was that God is not small in any way. God is infinite. Man expresses that infinite divine Spirit and Love. It's natural for the range of our thought and love to expand outward.

Elaine: There's really a Christianly scientific basis for the kind of expansiveness you're talking about.

Jim: Definitely. It all starts with God's nature as infinite Love and the fact that man expresses God. It's not as if things are being poured into us that weren't already there. God has made us as wonderfully complete and whole ideas. It's natural and right according to His law that in our daily experience there be an opening up and an appearing of this wholeness.

As we thought about adopting this little girl, there was an opening up for all of us, and it included our son as well. He'd grown up to that point as an only child. But it was interesting to me, as he thought about it and we prayed about it together, he, too, had a willingness to open our home to a new member.

Sharon: As we prayed about it we were willing to listen to God's direction every step of the way with no sense of human willfulness involved. Jim contributed in a very wise and fatherly way. He wanted me to go ahead and make sure that everything was legally cleared for an adoption. I asked the school social worker to make a very thorough check of the child's records. This was difficult because there wasn't much to go on. As the child became more secure she opened up more and more to me. At first the only story she told me was that her real parents were dead. But then she was able to remember the specific state where she had been born. I passed that information on.

Elaine: Had people asked her about her background before and she couldn't remember?

Sharon: Yes. She just was not communicating with them at all. The social worker was very glad to find at least a starting point to work with in this records check. Very soon thereafter, this social worker came back to me with a rather amazing story. They had found that the child had actually been kidnapped two years earlier by the couple who had abused her. This couple had told the child that her mom and dad had been killed in an automobile accident, but that was never true at all. The abductors had taken her and moved around so quickly that nobody had caught up with them.

Elaine: The key to the social worker's searches for her family was that the child remembered what state she was from. Do you think this was just a coincidence that she suddenly came up with it?

Sharon: I think it was all part of God's unfolding plan.

Elaine: I presume then that the girl was quickly returned to her parents, who must have been very grateful.

Sharon: We put her on a plane home, and she was with her parents in time for Christmas.

Elaine: You weren't disappointed?

Sharon: No. It was just so obviously the result of what God had been showing us step by step. It was right for her to be back with her family. And God certainly has provided many other continuing opportunities to share that sense of mothering love with other children. It's been a keynote of my teaching ever since.

Elaine: Jim, what else would you like to add about this parenting, this fathering, mothering Love?

Jim: I'm convinced that good teaching and good parenting always involve shepherding. The Bible has much to tell us about that, in the twenty-third Psalm and lots of other places. The shepherding all starts with God. He is the source of it. That shepherding comes to us and is expressed through us. When there's good shepherding, there's good teaching and there's good parenting. A shepherd takes such complete care of the flock.

We need to start with a clear sense of what God is and what He does for His children. That always helps me to be less overwhelmed. Drawing very much on Christ Jesus' teachings, John writes, "Perfect love casteth out fear." Love is God, the Principle of the universe. In my experience I've seen fear dissolve most readily when that great love of God is felt in some real measure. I also think fear is lessened when an individual realizes his or her own capacity to love—like the little boy on the jungle gym.

Elaine: If we want to pray prayers that can reach out and help, we have to see that God's love is ever present and that it can't be shut out. That love, God's love, absolutely must be felt. It can't be stopped.

Sharon: And it's also reflected; that spiritual love can't be given without it being reflected back.

Jim: When I look at Sharon's experience as a teacher, one passage from Mary Baker Eddy's book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures keeps coming to thought. In it the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science writes, "Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals." There's that sense of the impartiality that we've talked about, that sense of each one's being of great worth. And Love's adaptation, to me, is also in the nature of God. Divine Love meets needs in right ways—ways that fit.