RELATIONSHIPS January 14, 2008 Issue

LASTING COMPANIONSHIP

LYNN SEBBARD

ONE OF THE GREAT JOYS of life is having loving companionship and meaningful relationships. Yet sometimes they can be difficult to find. This was particularly true for me after I'd graduated from college, and again many years later after a divorce. But there were other times as well when loneliness enveloped me. This challenged me to pray for a deeper understanding of companionship.

What these times have taught me, though, is that good relationships come from my companioning with God in prayer. Doing so has made me feel closer to Him, and I've been able to hear His messages more and more clearly. Angels, wrote Mary Baker Eddy, are "God's thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect; the inspiration of goodness, purity, and immortality, counteracting all evil, sensuality, and mortality" (Science and Health, p. 581). God's angels tell me that I'm already with Him, with divine Love itself, and that brings peace and contentment.

One of the roadblocks to my happiness and progress, however, has been the tendency to decide how I think a particular need I have should be fulfilled. For instance, after my divorce, I thought it would be natural to marry again. But I'd neglected a very important point: to give up my preconceived idea of what would make me happy. I'd forgotten how the following statement had already shown me that my union with God must come first: "Be allied to the deific power," wrote Mary Baker Eddy, "and all that is good will aid your journey ... Hourly, in Christian Science, man thus weds himself with God, or rather he ratifies a union predestined from all eternity ..." (Unity of Good, p. 17).