Testimony of Healing May 28, 2012 Issue

Prejudice overcome and other blessings

Susan Stark

I am grateful to be learning from Christian Science how divine Love overcomes prejudice. In the early 1990s, I was called for jury duty in a neighborhood that had a high murder rate. A policeman had been shot there the week before. His funeral was scheduled for the same day as my jury duty and the procession would be along a street I would be traveling. It shocked me how afraid I was to go to the courthouse. My fear was so great that I tried to find a way to get out of jury duty. 

The afternoon before I was to serve, there was a big snowstorm. I thought the courthouse would have to close because of the huge piles of snow on the road, but the courthouse telephone message said it would be open. I started to pray for God’s help to make me feel safe, or to show me a way out. To my surprise, the message God gave me was, “This fear is just plain prejudice.” I hadn’t thought of myself as prejudiced, but now I could see that I was labeling everyone in that part of the city as a possible threat. The real danger was not outside me, it was the danger of holding narrow opinions and disobeying Jesus’ command to love my neighbor as myself. 

During the night before jury duty, I prayed to love everyone and everything I would see on the way to the courthouse. I needed to trust that the all-power of God, divine Love, is everywhere. It wasn’t easy because I was still so afraid of going, but when I sat on the bus the next morning with the bright sun hitting the pristine snow, I was ready to love.

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