Article August 5, 1996 Issue

Not intelligent enough?

Marilyn Wickstrom

I Can still remember his kind voice telling me that I didn't have the intelligence to go to college. There are no words to explain how I felt as I went down the hall after leaving my high-school counselor. Christian Science had taught me that I didn't have to accept limitations about my abilities, because I was the beloved child of God, made in His likeness. But the authority of this well-respected man had really intimidated me. I felt trapped in a mental darkness that somehow separated me from the person I wanted to be and knew I could be.

At the time, one of my assignments as a student in the Christian Science Sunday School was to study this passage in Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy: "God is the creator of man, and, the divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection, man, remains perfect. Man is the expression of God's being" (p. 470). I was beginning to understand that as the expression of God I could demonstrate the perfection and intelligence that He had given me. So I wasn't praying for an actual change in myself, but for a clearer realization of who I already was. How wonderful it was to acknowledge that in truth I was already perfect, intelligent, and competent. Regarding the pure expression of God, no other conclusion could be reached!

I learned not to think of myself as a material, limited identity, but as a spiritual, unlimited child of the one infinite Mind, God. Knowing that God is Love strengthened my conviction that He would never create someone stupid or inferior. As I began to understand this and accept it, my life began to change. The darkness was giving way to spiritual light.

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