Grace isn't something God is giving to His children; it is the already-present reality of God being God. Grace is a reality that we feel in our lives whenever we let go of the tempting thought that we exist apart from God with abilities, powers, goals, and responsibilities of our own.

In her June 1898 Communion message to The Mother Church titled Christian Science versus Pantheism, Mary Baker Eddy explained that the healing work of Christian Scientists "is accomplished by the grace of God,—the effect of God understood" (p.10). When I first read that line, I began to understand how healing in my life had followed the feelings of warmth and love that embraced me when I gave myself up completely to God. It was grace.

Overcoming of the mortal fear that often accompanies relinquishing personal control over everything has been a long journey for me. And while I still have work to do to complete the journey, I am very grateful for the steps already taken.

Early prayer brings peace

One of the first times I remember praying was when I was about five or six years old. My brother and I had just gone to bed, and, as I turned out the light, I could hear my parents arguing downstairs. There had been incessant arguing in our family for many months. And that night I can remember praying to God to stop the arguing and to take away whatever it was that was causing them to be angry with each other. While the arguing didn't stop, I fell asleep with a deep sense of peace that all of us were within God's care and love.

Looking back, I can see that it was grace—"the effect of God understood"— that gave me peace. Grace doesn't depend on how large or small an understanding of God we have at any given moment. My childlike understanding was enough to meet the need of that moment.

In my late teens, I was confronted with a relationship problem. At the height of the problem, I was led to these verses from First Timothy: "O Timothy; keep that which is committed to thy trust, avoiding profane and vain babblings, and oppositions of science falsely so called: which some professing have erred concerning the faith. Grace be with thee. Amen" (6:20, 21). This was the first time I remember being aware of the word grace. I didn't know what it meant, but I remember feeling immediately embraced in a warmth and love that quickly resolved the problem.

Warmth and love came to characterize those moments when I sincerely turned to God in time of need and felt close to Him. But the hurt and disappointment of everyday life always seemed to return and counteract those momentary feelings of safety and security.

A major step in understanding God

Then, several years ago I had an insight that really helped me make progress. I reasoned that if I were God, and had the opportunity to create all of creation, I wouldn't create anything that could be hurtful or harmful. My love and wisdom wouldn't allow it. At that moment I understood that God simply couldn't create anything hurtful or harmful, because He is completely loving and all-wise. With that added glimpse of reality, my prayers began changing. I went from imploring God to change evil or set it aside, to understanding more deeply who and what He is, and what He has already created—a reality that can include no evil.

I remember vividly when this insight became real and practical to me. Our teenage son had an after-school paper route. One day, he brought home a baby bird he had found on the street and asked if we could care for it. It was so young that it had no feathers and we weren't sure what kind of bird it was. We set up a place for it on our screened back porch and did what we could to feed it.

Over the next several days, emerging feathers showed that it was a male robin, and, with originality, we named him Robin. It also became apparent that one of the bird's legs was deformed—it was turned backward, and his opposed back toe was turned in the same direction as his other toes, so that he had no way of gripping a limb with that leg.

I had just gone into the public practice of Christian Science healing, and I began praying for Robin. Over several weeks, he grew and became very beautiful with all of his colors. He was also very tame and very gentle, so gentle that he would hold onto a finger with his one good leg and clean your eyelashes with his beak.

But his deformity remained unchanged.

One day, as I was sitting with him on the back steps of our porch, I found myself full of discouragement—I so wanted to see him healed. As I was honest in dealing with those thoughts (instead of sweeping them under the rug, as if I shouldn't be thinking them), I realized I was afraid that this situation was so complicated that it couldn't possibly be healed. So, I began to pray specifically just about that fear—fear that was taking the form of hopelessness and discouragement.

Grace and health coincide

Several things emerged from that prayer, which taught me about God's grace and its relationship to healing. I came face to face with the realization that I did not know how to change something God could not have created (a physical deformity) into something that represented a clearer view of His creation (a physical normality). On the heels of that realization came the comforting answer that I do not need to know, humanly, how change for the better takes place; that is the prerogative of God, who is responsible for maintaining each of His little ones, and who has never transferred this responsibility to me or anyone else.

As a healer, what I am doing is yielding to God, Truth—allowing the presence of spiritual truth to have its perfect work without any interference from me. The very presence of this truth in thought will do the work of changing the human picture—of replacing ignorance with understanding, deformity with perfection, turbulence with peace. On page 395 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy wrote: "Like the great Exemplar, the healer should speak to disease as one having authority over it, leaving Soul to master the false evidences of the corporeal senses and to assert its claims over mortality and disease. The same Principle cures both sin and sickness."

Soon, I began to feel the deep sense of warmth and love that I mentioned earlier. I knew that God was caring for all His creation, including Robin and me. I did not have to pick up the reins in the fear that God wasn't doing what He should be doing as the Father-Mother of us all. This wasn't a form of self-hypnosis; it wasn't positive human thinking replacing negative human thinking. It was the Christ, "the 'still small voice' of Truth ..." speaking to me (Science and Health, p.323). I could let God be God, and I could yield to being His child without any fear that something would be neglected or left undone.

The next time we looked at Robin's leg, it had turned to the front, and the back toe was in its proper location. After several more weeks, during which Robin learned how to find food for himself and how to bathe, he flew off fully healed and restored.

Yielding brings grace

I have come to realize that no matter how tempting the thought may be that we have minds, abilities, or responsibilities of our own to effect the human change we call healing, it never has been within man's capacity to bring release from suffering. Jesus tried to tell his followers that when he said: "Believest thou not that I am in the Father, and the Father in me? the words that I speak unto you I speak not of myself: but the Father that dwelleth in me, he doeth the works" (John 14:10).

All of the power and authority we have over evil is by way of reflection—that is, power and authority are inherent in God's oneness, and we reflect or manifest that power and authority as we understand God and unconditionally yield to a growing understanding of Him. It is grace.

The whole human family deserves to know the healing power of grace ... healing that is "the effect of God understood." CSS