As you can glean from the first two articles in this Sentinel, help is at hand if our home is threatened. Whether rent is due without money to pay it or soaring costs hinder us from setting up home, God is “a very present help in trouble” (Psalms 46:1). In describing how they overcame these challenges, authors Diane Williamson and Nancy Case both cite an idea in Mary Baker Eddy’s writings that explains how we experience such aid: “God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 307).

This is no less true when the needed “supply” is good health. The Bible points out that the body’s clamor and claims are the very opposite of God-given spiritual ideas, which reveal God’s nature and our expression of divinity’s goodness. For instance, the Apostle Paul said, “Whilst we are at home in the body, we are absent from the Lord,” adding that we’re “willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord” (II Corinthians 5:6, 8).

This might appear counterintuitive, given today’s hunger for bodily data. Yet, our well-being benefits from our being absent from the body through consciously being “with” divine Soul, which is a synonym for God. The harmonizing impact of Soul is actually seen on the body itself, as author Nancy L. Martin found. Writing in this issue’s “Healings’’ section, she recounts being told she would suffer with eczema for life. But the symptoms permanently disappeared from her thought and body as she focused on nurturing qualities that express Soul, such as “patience, confidence, perseverance, and courage” (see “Spiritual growth brings freedom from eczema”).