So often as parents, or grandparents, our roles as family guides open up wide and exciting realms of spiritual exploration for us. The creativeness involved in building on the innocence of children and sharing their eagerness to learn, does wonders for our growth.

Some time ago, a small incident in my family illustrated to me a comforting truth basic to the teachings of Christian Science the idea that our connection to God is permanent and the answers we need are always at hand.

When our daughter was teaching her four-yearold son how to write numbers he understood each character clearly until he got to the number 8. Although his mom tried several ways to help him, he couldn't grasp the concept.

As she thought quietly about the right approach, our daughter remembered that her son's name began with S, and that he could print his name. So she suggested he make an S. Then she asked him to connect the ends. How excited the little fellow was when he formed a very good 8 so easily. What really pleased him was that he already knew how to make half an 8 by printing the letter S. He only needed to make the connection to see the whole 8. Over and over he said, "Thank you, Mommy. Thank you."

In my study of Christian Science, I've seen that the intelligence to meet any human need health, home, employment, happy relationships, and even the most basic skills is already present in consciousness. It has only to be grasped through quiet listening and spiritual connections.

Since God is the one Creator, it follows that He is the supreme intelligence, the all-knowing Mind. There can be nothing unknown to this Mind, which knows only perfection. And whatever is known to God is known to His creation, including you and me. God's sons and daughters forever know what God forever knows, because the one Mind is inseparable from its ideas. It naturally follows that the needs of God's children are already known to Mind, and are met in human consciousness through prayerful understanding and spiritual reasoning.

However, human reasoning alone is inadequate to bring healing. This truth is explained in Science and Health, where Mary Baker Eddy wrote: "Matter cannot connect mortals with the true origin and facts of being, in which all must end. It is only by acknowledging the supremacy of Spirit, which annuls the claims of matter, that mortals can lay off mortality and find the indissoluble spiritual link which establishes man forever in the divine likeness, inseparable from his creator" (p. 491).

How comforting to know that the spiritual link, that perfect connection between God and His creation, cannot be broken, is already in effect, and is always available to be proved. We can never be separated from the origin and source of our being—God's substance, intelligence, and love. And we're never alone in our spiritual exploration. Nor, obviously, was Jesus, who prayed that all of his followers should be one, "as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me" (John 17:21).

I continue to learn that it doesn't take intricate metaphysical reasoning to connect with the divine Mind, the source of all intelligence, because we are already one with our Maker by divine decree. Our wisdom, clarity, balance, come to us from God. It is the quiet acknowledgment of this inseparability from God that makes plain what we need to know, no matter how small or big the occasion. And I find it assuring to pray in the firm knowledge that I already have all the God-derived and God-bestowed qualities I could ever need, and plentiful opportunities to express them in my life. Spiritual growth inevitably follows.

Even small victories give every one of us a firm foundation from which to face up to larger challenges. And as we grow in our understanding, we'll find the serenity that defeats irritation, the forgiveness that replaces resentment, the calmness that eases stress, the innocence that defeats sensuality, the trust in God that heals sickness, sin, and even death. These victories are evidence of our indissoluble, life-link with God. icss