Article January 31, 2000 ISSUE

FAMILY MATTERS

No child is lost

"I had been praying when the call came saying that she's been arrested."

The news that my teenage daughter had just been arrested for shoplifting was heart-breaking. She had been caught as she hastily exited the department store with a package of merchandise hidden under her jacket. Once she and I were face to face, I cried and then yelled at her, asking her how in the world she could do such a thing. She sat in stony silence, unmoved by my reaction.

This was not the first time she'd acted foolishly and irresponsibly. Our family had endured hardship and sleepless nights several times because of her wrong behavior. In fact, I had been praying when the call came saying that she'd been arrested. I wondered what these prayers of mine were really accomplishing.

But I continued to pray. Over the next several weeks, I delved into the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. A passage from Science and Health with the marginal heading "Scientific obstetrics" brought a new outlook. "A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive. The new idea, conceived and born of Truth and Love, is clad in white garments. Its beginning will be meek, its growth sturdy, and its maturity undecaying. When this new birth takes place, the Christian Science infant is born of the Spirit, born of God, and can cause the mother no more suffering" (p. 463).

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