Article February 25, 2013 Issue

Choose love instead of hate

Claire Van Fossen

The night of December 20, 2012, I was reading a book for a school assignment. It addressed human trafficking and slavery issues in America today. As I read, the book became increasingly disturbing. Finally it brought me to tears, and I shut it angrily, wishing that all the people who had done horrific things could be removed from this world forever.

As my thought was foggy with storm clouds of fear and hate, thoughts of the elementary school shooting that had occurred one week prior in Newtown, Connecticut, also poured in. I began to feel even more afraid and hopeless, wondering how God could have “let” people do terrible things to each other. If God is good, I thought, then why is evil so rampant in our society? I knew there had to be a solution to my questions, but I wasn’t sure what it would take for me and for society to forgive the kind of people who commit horrific acts.

I looked over at my bedside table and saw the Christian Science Hymnal and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. I remembered reading countless healings from people who had read from these two books and immediately felt comfort. For once, I felt as if I wanted to pick them up and read them, not because I was obligated to, but because I needed to hear the “still small voice” of God through the storm (see I Kings 19:12). I exchanged the book on slavery I was reading for the Hymnal and randomly opened to Hymn 148. The verse that stood out to me was: