Church Alive April 2, 2012 Issue

The following was written in support of Church Alive, a focus of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, that explores the meaning and possibilities of awakening to the spiritual basis and impact of Church.

Praying for others lifts burdens

Suzanne Riedel

One Wednesday night when my husband came home late from work, he offered to take care of all five of our little children, including our small infant, so I could go to a church testimony meeting. I decided to go, but I was feeling overwhelmed with burdens and responsibilities. Before I left, I opened the Christian Science Hymnal, through tears, to the words: 

Is thy burden hard and heavy?
Do thy steps drag wearily?
Help to bear thy brother’s burden,
God will bear both it and thee.
(No. 360)

That message seemed very directly related to how I was feeling, but I didn’t want more burden! As I drove the 30 minutes to church from our ranch, I prayed, with an edge, “OK, God, who else’s burden do You want me to bear?” Immediately, the words came to my thought: the Christian Science Board of Directors. At that early point in my practice of Christian Science, I didn’t even know who these directors were! The answer was absolutely out of the blue, but I knew it was God’s message.

Praying for Church, and those who hold church positions, was really praying to acknowledge the "structure of Truth and Love" in action.

I paused, and then asked what I should do with that idea. Again, immediately, the thought came to acknowledge that the Board of Directors (and this is exactly how the words came) “acted in Mary Baker Eddy’s stead, governing her church today.” I understood that to be how Mrs. Eddy had formed the Church’s structure, which she described in the Church Manual. So I thought about it and prayerfully acknowledged it all the way to church. 

When I stepped out of the car to go into church, the burden I had been feeling was completely gone. I was filled with a sense of dominion I truly hadn’t known before. And that sense of overwhelming burden for my family never came back.

I realized that praying for Church, and those who hold church positions, was really praying to acknowledge the “structure of Truth and Love” (see Science and Health, p. 583) in action in my own life and the lives of all humanity. It lifted my sense of church and home far above human activities, as good as they might be, to the reality of God’s control of His children—organized, maintained, disciplined, elevated, and inspired through Principle, divine Love. My part, I saw, was akin to Mrs. Eddy’s words in her poem “Christ My Refuge” (Poems, p. 12): 

My prayer, some daily good to do
To Thine, for Thee;
An offering pure of Love, whereto
God leadeth me. 

Send a comment to the editors
NEXT IN THIS ISSUE
Article
Reprinted from The Christian Science Monitor: Easter's call to be childlike
April 2, 2012
Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit