Students in the high-school comparative religions class I was visiting had asked many thoughtful questions about God: How can I know there is a God? Why doesn't He stop evil things from happening? Is it possible to feel His presence with us? And I had shared with the students some opportunities I'd had to experience beyond any doubt God's loving, caring presence, His protecting and healing power. I told them about a few of the times when members of my family had been healed through prayer alone of such things as malaria, heart trouble, skin cancer, migraine headaches, sports injuries, and childhood diseases, to name just a few.

Then as the bell rang and the students departed, a young man approached with one last question. He hadn't spoken during the class, but now he asked earnestly, "Will everyone go to heaven?" "Oh, yes!" I replied. "Heaven is right here, as Christ Jesus taught, and God helps us all to know this." The student's smile lighted up the room. "I'm so glad to hear that," he said and hurried off.

Driving home that day, remembering how delighted this student was to learn of his right to experience the kingdom of heaven, I felt new appreciation for my early Sunday School training. I had been taught Christ Jesus' promise "The kingdom of God cometh not with observation: neither shall they say, Lo here! or, lo there! for, behold, the kingdom of God is within you" (Luke 17:20, 21). Ever since childhood I had trusted this Biblical teaching. Rested in it. I simply expected the goodness of God—heaven—to be with me at all times. And this simple, childlike trust had brought considerable blessings.

One particularly convincing experience, which I shared with the class that day, occurred when I was a single mom living with my three young children in a house on a country hilltop. One night I woke suddenly and sat bolt upright in bed. The whole house was shaking, and there was a great roaring noise outside. "No!" I said vehemently. Instantly the commotion ceased. All was quiet. It was as if someone had flipped a switch. Still sleepy, I shook my head. Had I been dreaming? What had happened?

I thought about it for quite a while before going back to sleep and began to be certain that I had not been dreaming, that there had been some kind of incident—perhaps a violent storm. My heartfelt, one-word command had come instantly and instinctively from a reservoir of confidence that God loved me. Afterward, I felt sure that His love, which no person, place, or thing could overrule, had kept my children and me safe.

The next day at work, I overheard fellow employees talking about tornadoes that had touched down in our area during the night. One man, a newcomer I hadn't met, told of trees felled and cars overturned at his farm. He described a tornado's path through his cornfield. Acres of full-grown stalks had been utterly flattened. Then at a particular point, crops again stood upright, untouched, indicating the point where the tornado had veered suddenly upward and the destruction had ceased.

As this man spoke further, I learned his farm was just a short distance from our house! I then knew for certain that my trust in and understanding of God and His love for me and everyone had served to establish harmony in our lives.

The children and I hadn't had to plead or wait for heaven, but were enfolded in it. And the understanding that man is God's child, His indestructible spiritual idea, had helped our neighbors as well, for no farm buildings or homes in the area were damaged, and no one was hurt, even though large trees were uprooted and huge farm machinery was tossed about. Science and Health explains the understanding behind experiencing heavenly harmony consistently. It states, "To reach heaven, the harmony of being, we must understand the divine Principle of being" (p. 6). When we grasp the spiritual fact that God expresses only harmony, health, and eternal life throughout the universe, this spiritual understanding becomes a law to our experience. In a degree, we begin to follow the example of Jesus, who not only healed sickness but also stilled storms and raised the dead.

Jesus showed that God, divine Love, does not punish His creation but rather destroys all belief in evil of any sort, including sin. We can experience heavenly harmony, including good health, as we do our best to follow Christ—understanding and trusting God, loving our neighbor, overcoming sin, healing the sick.

Science and Health promises, "Like the archpriests of yore, man is free 'to enter into the holiest,'—the realm of God" (p. 481). All of us are free to discover and experience spiritual reality—God's kingdom of goodness and love—right here, right now.