Embracing new experiences
Throughout grade school, it seemed as though many of my friends were eager to leave the community in which we grew up. It wasn’t uncommon to hear, “As soon as I graduate, I’m getting out of this place.” But to me, the world outside of my community seemed frightening and unpredictable. By age ten, I was determined to attend only local schools, build a career at my dad’s lawn-mower shop, and never relocate more than a short distance away from friends and family.
As a young adult, I felt set for life. I had a guaranteed job managing Dad’s store, socialized regularly with childhood friends, and lived in a small building behind my parents’ house. But as time passed, an unsettled feeling that I was heavily reliant on this collection of familiar places and people for stability and support began to keep me awake at night. I worried that I’d boxed myself into a limited career and social circle, especially when I heard about friends taking jobs, attending schools, and running companies in different parts of the world.
As a student of Christian Science, I turn to the Bible for all aspects of healing in my life. Through my study, I realized that Christ Jesus was not dependent on his parents or his home community for support or stability. As an adolescent, Jesus publicly declared that God was his Father (see Luke 2:49 ). As a young adult, Jesus moved from city to city, trusting that every human need would be met along the way. It became evident to me that Jesus’ separation from his family and his movement to wherever he was needed helped prepare him to bless and heal a global community in the most meaningful way the world has ever seen.
With this example in thought, I soon freed myself to engage in God’s unlimited and universal community. For example, I amicably left my family’s business to attend college, and now have a meaningful career at an international company in a specialized computer field, which always interested me but had seemed out of reach. I’m also an active member and leader of volunteer organizations in communities throughout my state. The freedom to go where I was needed opened opportunities to interact with and bless friends and professional colleagues around the globe.
I affirmed out loud that God’s community includes both my stepdaughter’s old friends and the new friends she was about to make.
More than a decade later, this expanded sense of community and the resulting blessings I’ve experienced helped me through a critical turning point for one of my stepdaughters, Kristin. After Kristin had lived in the same house, attended the same small elementary school, and had been around the same friends and family for five years, my wife and I decided to send her to school in the city—to the same school district where my wife was employed as a teacher. Additionally, our family would be moving to a new community. For years, Kristin was very resistant to change of any sort, to the point where she would scream and cry. And similar to me when I was her age, she had resolved to stay in the same house, attend the same school, and never move away from the friends and family members she grew up with.
After the move, my stepdaughter yelled and cried that she hated her new teachers and peers and would never be happy until she returned to her old school and her old friends. Also, my wife and I received strong messages from relatives who were concerned, and from some online parenting advice, warning that relocating children to a new community often leads to stress, emotional suffering, anxiety, declining grades, and a tough, unhappy life of being separated from familiar places and people.
I could see that the anger Kristin felt and the frightening messages we heard from “experts” and others were impositions on my family’s freedom to feel support and stability, so one day I decided to call a Christian Science practitioner for Christian Science treatment. Referring to a passage on page 412 in Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the practitioner reminded me that the power of God, divine Love, is “adequate to unclasp the hold” of doubt and fear. He said, “Kristin is free to be herself today” and has a natural desire to give and grow wherever she is.
In the days that followed, I replaced negative thoughts with freeing and absolute statements about God’s love for His children. For example, when I was driving Kristin to school, I tenderly affirmed out loud that God’s community includes both my stepdaughter’s old friends and the new friends she was about to make. We talked about our divine right to freely live and give in a world community—one in which God needs our ideas and interactions with others. I assured her that because God needs us to share what we have to offer, we will excel naturally and effortlessly, regardless of where we are or who we are with.
The anger and tears stopped. By the end of the week, Kristin introduced me to some of her new friends. The following week, she joined the running club and choir and began participating extensively in extra-curricular programs. One month later, she brought home a glowing report card that included very positive comments from her teacher.
My heart still fills with joy when I see pictures of the beaming smile on Kristin’s face as she accepted her fifth grade graduation certificate. She says she sometimes still misses her old school and friends, and I’m grateful for the love she expressed during that time in her life. Her sense of community expanded to include places and people that before seemed distressing. This experience reaffirmed my own understanding that support, continuity, and stability are spiritual ideas that originate in our love for God.
A contribution from Ted’s stepdaughter
Have you ever felt like you lost all your friends? Well, I have. It all started like this …
My mom told me that I was going to switch schools from a small country school that I had been at for five years, to a huge city school for my fifth grade year. I did not want to go at all. I thought I would miss my friends and teachers, but I had to go anyway.
On the first day at my new school, I came home crying. I didn’t know anybody, and on top of that, in math class they were doing something I had never seen before in my life. This made me want to go back to my old school. My mom comforted me, and Ted, my stepdad, said that I would always be in the right spot for me. And if I wasn’t for some reason, I would be moved. I wasn’t sure about this because I felt like I was not in the right spot.
Being the energetic person I am, I joined the running group and the choir. I started to like the new experience, and found out I was in the right place after all. I realized God is everywhere I go. I made several new friends who I enjoy spending time with. It was good to see that I can make friends anywhere.
Now I am at another new school, middle school, doing band, cross country, and newscast—a daily TV school news program that I participate in by writing scripts and anchoring. I am in my right place!
—Kristin, age 11
