Article April 17, 2006 Issue

HOPE—REACHING UP WITH BOTH HANDS

BY MARGARET ROGERS

AN ANCIENT STORY of India tells of a queen who was a victim of a feud with a rival family. When the rivals "win" the queen in a wager, they attempt to humiliate her by unwinding her sari. In a film version of the story, the queen clutches her sari with one hand and reaches up to the Almighty with the other. Then she gives up her attempt to save herself and reaches up with both hands. As she does this, sari becomes endless, protecting her and exhausting her foes.

I love this message that salvation comes from putting all hope and trust in God. It can feel hard—even out of the question—to let go of material hopes and trusts, but the practice of spiritual healing has demonstrated that undivided hope in God allows us to experience a power of good that nothing on earth can equal.

A staff member in Mary Baker Eddy's home in 1903 recorded in her diary that a fellow worker once asked the Founder of Christian Science what to do when in praying for healing you've done everything you know how to do without the desired result, and discouragement and doubt come in. Mrs. Eddy replied, "Shut out the senses and take the side with God; if it comes to you that you do not know which is the side with God, turn to Him alone, shutting out everything else; this is the way" (Diary of Lida Fitzpatrick, August 9, 1903, The Mary Baker Eddy Collection, The Mary Baker Eddy Library).