Many years ago I felt I was about to be stuck in a life of loneliness, with no career and no companionship. I would soon graduate from college, and around me students were getting engaged, finding future partners with great joy. I went on dates, but each one felt like a mistake. I felt left behind, like a ship stuck on an empty shore after the tide has gone out.

I was accustomed to praying about difficulties in my life, and I reasoned that praying patiently before a departure—in this case, my departure from college—clears the way. Thoughts of animosity, discouragement, or past wrongs or failures tend to keep us from progressing. But expectation of God’s goodness and the anticipation of joy and harmony lift and free us for a timely move forward.

In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy states, “Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy” (p. 249). Feeling divine energy leads out of harmful currents, opens closed doors, and gathers people in harmony and friendship. Forward movement comes naturally from catching the “wind” of spirituality, which gravitates everyone Godward and leaves no one behind on a barren shore.