Your Parent loves you

Having known quite a few people who have been deserted one way or another by one birth parent or both parents, I recently began to think about the true sense of fatherhood and motherhood. 

A friend of mine was deserted by her husband when her last child, who is now grown, was born. I grew up without a mother. I know family and friends who have grown up without this human love and—truth be told—it hurts to think about it. There is anger when you feel you lack something. You tend to put the blame on the situation. It sometimes makes you so angry that you become jealous of other people. There have been times when I’ve had mood swings and felt sick. But prayer to see God as Father and Mother heals. 

Once, when the subject of desertion came up again as I was talking to my friend, I checked myself, and it dawned on me that there is actually nothing “out there” that my friend, my friend’s children, me, or anybody for that matter has lost by way of the loving care of our true Parent. It’s just that sometimes we hold on to a false sense of our real and true Father and Mother.

Mary Baker Eddy says in one line of her spiritual interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father-Mother God, all-harmonious” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 16 ). The understanding of this statement precludes us from getting angry or blaming our situation on any person, place, or thing. The one loving Father, God, gives us our sustenance, our health, our life, and everything we ever need all the time. The Bible says in Luke 15:31 , “Son, thou art ever with me, and all that I have is thine.” This is what the father says to his elder son in Jesus’ parable of the prodigal son. 

Prayer to see God as Father and Mother heals.

I am learning that our pride gets in the way of feeling loved, but the real culprit is always impersonal “malicious animal magnetism” (a term Mary Baker Eddy uses in her writings), which hypnotizes us into believing we were born into matter by human parents in the first place and are not wholly spiritual. Now, of course, it’s normal for parents to love and care for their children and be responsible. This loving care is one of the ways God’s love is reflected. But God, divine Spirit, is All-in-all, and the understanding of this makes it possible to overcome any hurt and the acrimony we may have gone through. With this understanding, it’s easier then to forgive our parents for what they’ve done, or didn’t do.

Looking back at my life, I am grateful that I have always been provided for, although I didn't always see it. When I think about the experience I had growing up, although sometimes bitter to remember, I challenge the suggestion that I could ever be separated from my true Parent, God.

Mrs. Eddy writes about God and happiness this way in Science and Health: “Soul has infinite resources with which to bless mankind, and happiness would be more readily attained and would be more secure in our keeping, if sought in Soul. Higher enjoyments alone can satisfy the cravings of immortal man. We cannot circumscribe happiness within the limits of personal sense” (pp. 60–61 ).

No matter our family situation, we are always cared for by our loving Parent, our Father-Mother God. And God will show us this love in practical ways.