Article November 2, 1998 Issue

IF A DATING RELATIONSHIP ENDS

Name withheld

Recently I started dating a guy who had been my best friend for over a year. Everything was fine for about six weeks. Then suddenly, he decided that he no longer wanted to date me, but that our friendship should remain intact. He didn't give me any specific reasons, and he went on to another girlfriend very quickly.

I felt hurt, stepped on, confused, and most of all, incomplete. For about eight months, I disliked myself and felt troubled about the loss of both a best friend and a boyfriend. (It had seemed too hurtful to remain friends.) I would reach out to God in prayer, but I wasn't really willing to do God's will. I just wanted God to make everything better, without my having to grow spiritually. Then I went away to a camp for Christian Scientists.

While at camp, I came across an article on completeness a friend had given me from a Christian Science magazine. One of the main ideas was that no one can ever feel complete in a material way. This made me realize that I needed to see myself less as a material being, and more as an individual, spiritual idea moving in God's harmony and order. I thought about the truth of natural harmony, and how it was my divine right. Soon after this I began feeling regenerated and full of joy, with a sense of peace that I could not have gained by personally trying to fix the material picture around me. This peace led to freedom from self-consciousness, which I had been struggling with for several years.

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