Article May 19, 2014 Issue

Saving the innocent—one life at a time

Elizabeth Graser Lindsey

Since I’ve been living on a small farm in a rural area with my family, I have been presented with matters of life and death much more frequently than when I lived in town. It’s a bit like people in areas affected by violence and turmoil not of their choosing. I did not decide one day that I was metaphysically ready to face bigger challenges, or that I wanted to have such experiences imposed on my life. I face challenges and pray about them because they are demanding my attention. Most of us probably face challenges in much the same way. 

This year, as in the past, I have often prayed about the well-being of the animals on our small farm. I had been praying over several days about some problems, which included the accidental death of a little chick and a young goat. I had also heard various disturbing news items, particularly a report that was issued about the many cattle killed in a South Dakota blizzard last fall. The material message seemed to be that the innocent suffer. In prayer, I rejected this and refused to be trapped into believing that evil could triumph over the innocent. I realized that our God-given identity is spiritually based and can’t be taken from us.

However challenging the material evidence may seem, all of God’s ideas—you, me, the people in Syria and other troubled areas, the many creatures in this world—are spiritual. And as such, God’s innocent spiritual ideas are safe in good. Spiritually seen, the innocent cannot suffer or die. They are the manifestation of God, the perfect and eternal. They are harmoniously subject to God’s good will “as in heaven, so on earth,” as Mary Baker Eddy tells us in her spiritual interpretation of the Lord’s Prayer (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 16–17). Each innocent thought is the eternal expression of divine Mind, Life—a complete, powerful, active idea.

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