Article April 19, 2004 Issue

When opposites attract

Prayer and spiritual intuition bring two people together who at first glance had little in common.

Ginny Luedeman

I HAD TROUBLE UNDERSTANDING the male-female relationship. With an alcoholic father, I had a rather rough upbringing. Dad ended up divorcing my mom and leaving us. I developed a fear of men, and my relationships with them were neither productive nor positive.

After I'd gone through a number of failed relationships, including a marriage, someone introduced me to Mary Baker Eddy's book Science and Health. This book was written over 100 years ago, but its ideas are still relevant and powerful today. As I read it, I noticed a comforting feeling I'd had as a young girl when I prayed. This feeling gradually led me to a comfortable acceptance of my intuitive, spiritual nature.

Soon I learned that Science and Health together with the Bible kept me in touch with an ability to perceive things in the light of God's creating—that is, with spiritual sense. A passage I love says: "A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity" (p. 128). That term native air, to me, means it's natural for us to be united with an intelligent source that gives ideas to protect and guide us. I've come to trust that spiritual sense and, oftentimes, trust it first instead of after everything else fails.