It was one of those days. Our town was right in the middle of a relentless heat wave, I was tired and feeling under the weather, my son wasn’t listening to me, the house was in disorder, and the thought of praying seemed like an entirely foreign concept. Impatient with my son, I sent him straight to his nap and picked up my cellphone so I could send a grumbling text message to my husband (no need to keep a bad day to myself when I could spread it around!). But, before I could press “send,” I slowed myself down and could feel that I wasn’t handling this situation the right way.

Examining my thinking, I saw that I was incorrectly viewing my home from a negative, chaotic, and material standpoint. I knew that to bring more harmony to my whole household, it was important for me to turn to God, Spirit, to govern my thinking and my behavior. To settle myself, I sat down and turned on some music—hymns and other songs that celebrate God. 

I soon felt God’s tender, sweet, loving embrace surrounding and comforting me. And then, something funny happened. In my thinking, I shoved that healing presence away. “No!” I thought. I’d been impatient, unkind, and thoughtless that afternoon and didn’t think I deserved God’s love. I felt I deserved rebuke. I gave all of this little thought after that and went on with the activities of my day. 

A few hours later, I went with my family to the Wednesday evening testimony meeting at our Christian Science branch church. No matter how complicated life seems to become, I can always trust that I’ll find answers in the quiet sanctuary of church. The Reader shared two passages from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy that stood out to me. The first was, “Even if prayer is sincere, God knows our need before we tell Him or our fellow-beings about it” (p. 13). And the other was: “The ‘divine ear’ is not an auditory nerve. It is the all-hearing and all-knowing Mind, to whom each need of man is always known and by whom it will be supplied” (p. 7).

As I sat there in the service, the significance of these words hit me. My prayer to change my earlier negative attitude had been sincere, but because I was so sure that I needed to be rebuked, I couldn’t recognize that my Father, God, was graciously giving me what I really needed in that moment—His loving embrace. Right then, I could clearly see the healing power of unconditional love versus the damaging effects of shame or reproach. 

I deeply apologized to God for my ingratitude and opened my heart completely to receiving His precious gift of love. Soon, I felt God’s comforting embrace again. My exhaustion and “under the weather” symptoms were immediately healed, harmony was restored to my family and household, and the heat no longer soured my mood. 

So what happened here? How did I get to the point where simply accepting the sweet presence of God’s love could evoke such dramatic change? As Mrs. Eddy explains throughout her writings, we must watch and evaluate our thinking. I particularly love her perspective on anatomy, where she explains: “Anatomy, when conceived of spiritually, is mental self-knowledge, and consists in the dissection of thoughts to discover their quality, quantity, and origin. Are thoughts divine or human? That is the important question. This branch of study is indispensable to the excision of error” (Science and Health, p. 462). In “dissecting” my thoughts, I found that I needed to identify the correct, spiritual view of myself to avoid such mistakes in the future.

In the past when I’d tried to correct my character flaws, I’d promised myself to make an effort to change my ways; be less impatient and more loving. While on the surface, these efforts were admirable, I recognized that I was trying to force myself to change through human will alone. I’d also reached the wrong conclusion about myself—assuming I’d fallen from being God’s perfect child and that I had to find my way back to His grace before God would love me again. Now, I prayed to uncover the true view of myself by relying on God to tell me who I am and how He made me as His perfect, spiritual reflection.

I never have to earn God's love. That is a precious gift.

Over the years, I’ve learned that self-evaluation does not exist so that we can use our mistakes and wrong thinking as weapons to condemn ourselves. It exists so that we may root out thoughts that are unlike our true, spiritual nature. God didn’t make a fallen, sinning man, subject to chaotic days, discordant symptoms, and disorderly homes. No, God made man perfect, in His image—upright, calm, healthy, and orderly. We are not perfect because we correct our thinking, we correct our thinking because we are perfect, and we don’t have to tolerate an imperfect display of thought or action in our experience. 

To me, this Bible verse describes the act of self-evaluation: “They shall beat their swords into plowshares, and their spears into pruninghooks: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they learn war any more” (Isaiah 2:4). This passage makes me think about how self-condemnation is like the sword and spear—cutting, piercing, and damaging. But self-evaluation is like the plowshare and pruninghook, cultivating peace and healing by protecting fruitful thoughts and clearing out whatever would clutter our thinking or restrain growth. 

It is God who guides the reforming of our thinking. As Mary Baker Eddy stated: “God’s ways are not ours. His pity is expressed in modes above the human. His chastisements are the manifestations of Love. The sympathy of His eternal Mind is fully expressed in divine Science, which blots out all our iniquities and heals all our diseases” (Miscellaneous Writings
1883–1896, p. 102). 

We generally think of chastisement in human, mortal terms, associating it with anger, strong rebuke, or even wrath. But God’s spiritual chastisement happens when His love for us becomes so obvious and deep that we gain a desire to drop anything that would interfere with our precious relationship with Him. All that can be left is His goodness and virtue manifested in our experience.

We might not always know exactly what we need in order to experience healing, and it can take great patience and humility to let God’s love lead the way. What I needed that day was for the “sins” of impatience and unkindness to be destroyed through the presence of God’s unconditional love. When God overwhelms the heart with love, there is no room for behaviors and thoughts that don’t honor Him.

With my relationship to God as my top priority, I’m finding that peace and harmony are more consistent from day to day. I’m learning that when I am mistaken in my thinking or my action, I need to let divine Love do the correcting. I’m also learning that I never have to earn God’s love. That is a precious gift that can never be taken from me.