To those struggling with a sense of darkness, Christian Science offers enlightenment and hope. Darkness comes in different forms: discouragement, depression, perhaps hopelessness in the face of some challenging circumstance. Or loneliness, which has been called a national epidemic. In the pitch darkness of such unpleasant states of thought, we may be tempted to ask, Is there really a God who can help and save us?

But the darkest moments of our lives can be the harbingers of the greatest light. Right where no light of promise seems to shine, we can be on the cusp of the brightest dawn. This is because the irresistible light of Christ, or spiritual Truth, is always present to penetrate the darkness wherever we are. Then and there is God’s arm—His power to save and heal—revealed by the Christ, Truth. “I will redeem you with a stretched out arm” (Exodus 6:6).

The Bible teaches that God’s Word brings light to human consciousness: “The entrance of thy words giveth light” (Psalms 119:130). And the Scriptures also assure us that God is revealing Himself to you and me and everyone, perpetually “call[ing] you out of darkness into his marvellous light,” as First Peter has it (2:9). This light of God, as illustrated in the Bible, reaches us through Christ and the revealed laws of God, which are explained in Christian Science.

As understood in Christian Science, mental darkness is nothing more than the illusory absence of divine light. This light exists eternally and without interruption. The seeming coexistence of darkness and light is proved fictional by the influx of the light of God’s perpetual presence.

The darkest moments of our lives can be the harbingers of the greatest light.

This was illustrated so clearly in the life of the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy. She was no stranger to the suggestion of darkness. When the light of Truth that she eventually named Christian Science first illumined her thought, she was enshrouded in darkness. As she poignantly describes in her brief autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection: “Previously the cloud of mortal mind seemed to have a silver lining; but now it was not even fringed with light. Matter was no longer spanned with its rainbow of promise. The world was dark” (p. 23). 

But Christ Jesus described himself as the light of the world and promised that those who follow him should not walk in darkness. In her poem “Christmas morn,” Mrs. Eddy says that “murky clouds” pursued the birth of the Christian era in a world engulfed in paganism and materialism: “Thy light was born where storm enshrouds / Nor dawn nor day!” (Poems, p. 29). When the light of a more spiritual existence reached her consciousness, her life and circumstances were transformed. She explains, following the earlier autobiographical passage: “The character of the Christ was illuminated by the midnight torches of Spirit.”

John’s vision in Revelation of the New Jerusalem, needing neither sun nor moon, “for the glory of God did lighten it” (21:23), represents the final realization in human consciousness of God’s decree in Genesis 1 “Let there be light” (verse 3). In this correct account of spiritual creation, God separated the light—the revelation of Truth and of spiritual ideas—from the darkness of false material conceptions. The illusory mist or darkness of a material sense of creation would obscure the light of God’s spiritual creation, but this light broke through and was revealed in its full, eternal effulgence through Christ and Christian Science.

Gaining a sense of man and creation in the likeness of divine Spirit dispels gloom and restores hope.

Many years ago, during a period of uncertainty, my circumstances were redeemed by the light of Christ. As I searched fruitlessly for right employment needed to sustain the final stages of graduate study, the way forward appeared blocked. I prayed deeply for the right answer, and a gleam of light illuminated the path forward. It came in the form of a spiritual impulse to undertake a brief research project that, as it turned out, was to set the stage for the most unexpected turn of events.

Before the employment issue was resolved, there came a clear and joyful sense and deep conviction of God’s loving care and direction. Soon, a beautiful career step unfolded that was beyond anything I could have imagined. To paraphrase a beloved hymn from the Christian Science Hymnal, “Heaven’s eternal day” appeared before me as I realized that all along, “God’s own hand” was guiding me (Henry Francis Lyte, No. 166).

Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy explains that “darkness and doubt encompass thought, so long as it bases creation on materiality” (p. 551). But gaining a sense of man and creation in the likeness of divine Spirit dispels gloom and restores hope. This spiritual sense comes to thought made receptive by humility and meekness. 

In the midst of seeming darkness we can thank God for His angels—His spiritual thoughts imparted to human consciousness—which reassure us under every circumstance that God is an ever-present help in trouble. We can thank God that the Christ is always reaching out to us in our darkest hours. That God is always loving us, right where we are. We can thank God for the Christ, which comes to us and speaks tenderly over “earth’s troubled, angry sea” (Poems, p. 12). We can thank God that in the midst of the darkest hours, in the midst of our earnest searches, God’s voice is heard: “I have not forsaken thee” (Johannes Heermann, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 76).

And thereby all is well, the seeming darkness dissipated, never to return. And all is well now, in the brilliant, joyful light of His presence. As Paul summarizes in Romans: “The night is far spent, the day is at hand” (13:12).