Article July 25, 2011 Issue

Healing steps to reconciliation

By Jean Paul Nlend Nkott

Thanks to the study of Christian Science, a good understanding had settled over our family, eliminating the apprehension, doubt, and fear with which we had been brought up. 

However, a few years ago, when preparing for my father’s funeral, I had, as head of the family, serious misunderstandings with one of my sisters and my younger brother. Their attitude toward me seemed very unfair, and I seriously resented them, even one year later. We had spoken very little and had not visited each other during that period. I felt they were wrong and that it was up to them to come to me and take the first steps toward reconciliation. 

One morning during that time, after I’d slept peacefully, I woke up with a very sore tooth. I prayed, as I do every morning, affirming truths about the reality of God’s creation, always perfect and harmonious, in His image and likeness. Then I went to work. During the day, the situation hardly improved—the pain persisted all day. But I continued to affirm my spiritual nature and the impossibility of my expressing anything other than divine Love, in which there can be no pain or infection.  