IT LOOKED AS IF time had run out for my neighbor Jo. She had moved from our apartment complex to an assisted living facility a few months earlier, and that morning a nurse had called me to say that they could get no response out of her. Apparently she was slipping away.

Jo had been retired for many years, had no close family, and had outlived most of her friends. As I drove over to see her, I prayed. It wasn't a prayer for a smooth transition or a "Heal her, O Lord," but more of an affirmation that no matter what I saw when I got there, Jo was actually not a mortal person with a beginning and end. I prayed to know and feel that every individual is in truth precious evidence of the Life that is God, Life that is spiritual and timeless.

When I got there, Jo was in bed facing the wall. She didn't respond to my greeting. In fact, I couldn't even detect the motion of breathing. As I sat down, it struck me that it felt as though I were stepping into the middle of a play. The stage set and the position of the player pointed to an obvious outcome. Interestingly, the next thought that came to me was that I wasn't obligated to accept that outcome.

In theater the audience agrees to suspend its disbelief. When the curtain first goes up, the set and situation are obviously artificial. If you recognize the actors, you have to adjust to the fact that they're not playing the same roles you saw them in the last time. But as the drama moves forward, the story absorbs you, the actors merge with the current characters, and you forget your initial disbelief.

That morning in Jo's room, I caught a glimpse of an idea that has helped me many times. I could choose to keep my disbelief in the drama in front of me. Human life itself has often been described as a play in which we are completely engrossed. Naturally, we care deeply about our physical circumstances—health, security, relationships, desires. And rightfully so. They feel like our whole reality. But from a higher–than–human viewpoint—the viewpoint of the eternal Mind or God—all life is spiritual, continuous, and perfect. Each identity is an eternal image or idea in Mind, without birth or death.

As I considered that viewpoint, death seemed like an ending I didn't need to believe. This conviction was so strong that I began talking to Jo just as if we were chatting in her living room. I told her whenever she wanted to get up, I'd get her some breakfast. At first there was no response, but after a short time she stirred and said, "I think I will get up now." She put on her robe and moved to a chair. When I went out to ask the nurses to bring her some breakfast, they looked at me in disbelief and went to check on her. Jo was her normal self.

I'm not claiming a marvelous cure took place that day. Jo did pass on later that year. What has stayed with me, though, is the feeling that it's never too late for a turnaround in someone's thinking and life. The Creator doesn't write failure into anyone's life script. The basis for this conviction includes three spiritual facts that are fundamental in Christian Science practice:

• Human existence is mental in nature.

• God is the only real Life and Mind, in which everything is good and eternal.

• Evil has no more power over us than a tragic play that we can reject as our reality.

Learning that existence is mental rather than physical, subject to our thoughts rather than to outside causes, means that we can master our troubles mentally. Some people misunderstand this and get defensive (it's not my fault), or bogged down in guilt (everything's my fault). But the fact that thought governs experience isn't a condemnation but a liberation, when we also accept that the divine Mind is a constant source of right thoughts for everyone.

I find a simple first step in exercising mastery over my thoughts is to ask God for a thought to replace any fear or discouragement I have at the moment. If one doesn't come right away, I open the Bible or other inspired writing to find one. Such a healing thought might be that everyone is a spiritual being, safe in Mind now. Treasure that thought like a valuable prize. The Bible says that God's thoughts are "precious" and "more in number" than grains of sand. It urges us to "be still, and know that I am God" (Ps. 139:17, 18; 46:10).

To know God is to know unceasing, all–inclusive Love. It is to know that you are desired, loved, and designed for fulfillment by the Creator of your eternal life. How can you know this is true? Because spiritual reality has revealed itself in all ages, to and through individuals who have seen and felt God's goodness and healing power. Many Bible stories show that it's never too late for a life to turn around. Read about Joseph, Hezekiah, and people Jesus healed (Gen., chaps. 37—45; Isa. 38:9—20; John, chaps. 5, 8, 9, 11). Accounts in this magazine show the same saving power active today.

Jesus fully expressed this saving power, the Christ that is always with us. Christ is God's message of total love and salvation for everyone. Jesus taught that it's not things outside us that make trouble, but rather mistaken thoughts we accept as true ones. He showed how to distinguish illusion from reality, evil from good, and choose to follow the real and good. He proved that it's never too late for anyone to step out of the mortal drama of hopelessness into the light of God's healing love.

Mary Baker Eddy found the Science of Christian healing in Jesus' understanding that God is all and wholly good, and that evil is an illusion destroyed by disbelieving it. She described God as "all the Life and Mind there is or can be." From the divine viewpoint, there is only infinite good and eternal life. Yet God's love reaches us right in our troubles and lifts us out of illusion. In the same passage, she continued: "Now this self–same God is our helper. He pities us. He has mercy upon us, and guides every event of our careers. He is near to them who adore Him" (Unity of Good, pp. 3–4).

When the mortal drama insists that it is the reality, and that happiness or health can't be found or recovered, think of the Christ saying, "Don't be afraid. I am Truth right by your side until the end of this play"—until you see plainly that what looks like no hope is pure fiction and you feel the reality of your God–given wholeness.

It's never too late for Christ to lift our viewpoint. None of God's loved ideas can be in a hopeless situation. People may argue that such an assertion doesn't mean much without concrete proof, such as Jesus gave when he raised the dead or stopped a storm in its tracks. Granted, faith must have results. But like the small mustard seed Jesus pointed to as the beginning of a great tree, sincere and persistent affirmations of truth should be recognized as seeds of major results.

To consistently declare God to be the only Life and Mind, and evil to be nothing—no part of spiritual reality—changes our view. The effort to be faithful to truth lifts us above the drama. "He is near to them who adore Him." Affirmations of spiritual truth inevitably become concrete experience—because consciousness and experience are one.

Evil has no more power over us than a tragic play that we can reject as our reality. Anyone who has seen the curtain go down at the end of Hamlet on a stage full of corpses has also seen the curtain go up and the actors take their bows, very much alive and with no ill feelings toward each other! We can keep our disbelief in the mortal drama and know with certainty that the curtain will rise to reveal everyone's God–blessed life.

CSS