Article October 19, 2009 Issue

AN EXAMPLE TO FOLLOW

GLORIA READ PENNELL,—GREENVILLE, NORTH CAROLINA

IT WAS TO BE my four-year-old granddaughter's first day at the beach. There she stood in the kitchen after breakfast. Caroline had dressed herself. Wearing sunglasses and a bathing suit, flippers on her feet, straw hat on her head, holding pail and shovel in one hand, kite and boogie board in the other, and smiling ear to ear—she didn't know exactly what to expect, but she was ready for anything. And all of it was going to be good!

The lessons we learn from our children are significant. The lesson my granddaughter was teaching me, that of happy expectancy, was one I needed that day. I had lately found myself without the eager, enthusiastic interest in living I'd once had. I had become apprehensive, fearful of the future, of what lay ahead. More than a positive outlook was needed, more than a change in psychological attitude and behavior. It was time to get back on track, to bring my consciousness in line with the divine, with the actual. I needed a more spiritual model to follow.

As Mary Baker Eddy wrote: "Let the perfect model be present in your thoughts instead of its demoralized opposite. This spiritualization of thought lets in the light, and brings the divine Mind, Life not death, into your consciousness" (Science and Health, p. 407.) I've learned that keeping my thoughts in line with that divine model of freedom and perfection clears away fear of disease, aging, loss—whatever the human mind would frighten us with.

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