One Friday afternoon as my dad started his drive home from the middle school where he was teaching, he saw a kid sitting on a wall in the parking lot. Dad felt something was wrong, so he went back and asked the boy if he was OK. 

The boy told him he had nowhere to go. His mother had left when he was a baby, and the grandparents he had been living with had now passed on. He’d been sent to live with his father, but his father had just been arrested. And since his father hadn’t paid the rent, the landlord would not let the boy into his dad’s apartment. 

My dad decided to drive the boy to our home. While Dad sorted out the legal issues to have him stay with us, my mom and I fed the boy and got to know him. I was a toddler and found him fascinating, especially when he played guitar and sang to me. 

Eventually, my parents became the boy’s foster parents, and I got a big brother. He seemed delighted to be adored by a baby sister. We became very close. 

As we grew up, there were periods where we saw less of each other, but we always maintained a loving connection—until one New Year’s Eve when my brother and his wife were at a dinner party at my home. He seemed upset and finally left, slamming the door behind him. He’d left his wife at the party, and I had to put her on a train to their home the next day. None of us knew what had happened.

I repeatedly tried to contact my brother by email, letter, and phone as well as in person, but he made it clear that he did not want to see or talk with me. My sister-in-law said he would not tell her what was bothering him.

Confused, angry, and hurt, I thought I had done something to upset my brother. I wanted to figure it out and fix it and was frustrated that he would not give me the opportunity. This went on for several years, and I missed him. Then he became ill, but would not even allow me to visit him in the hospital. Ultimately, my brother passed on, leaving me devastated.

Now that it was no longer possible for us to talk, it seemed too late for a resolution. Yet, it didn’t feel right to resign myself to living with a heart full of hurt. I had experienced many healings in my life through prayer in Christian Science, and I trusted that this pain could be healed, too. 

There could never be an inharmonious relationship between any of Mind’s ideas.

Turning to God with my whole heart, I asked Him to help me see what I needed to know. I was led to read the first chapter of Genesis, where I was reminded that God created both my brother and me in His image and likeness—perfect, whole, and complete. That meant we were both forever obedient to God’s law of harmony and never subject to material so-called laws of sin, sickness, and death. Neither of us could ever be outside of God’s love and care. And since God is Spirit, His image and likeness is spiritual and eternal; therefore, we could not be restricted from fully expressing and experiencing our God-given gifts of goodness, happiness, and love. 

Continuing to be still and listen to what God was telling me, I realized that all along I’d felt I had to fix something—as if God, infinite Mind, had made a mistake or needed help from me to repair something that was broken. Now I saw that there could never be an inharmonious relationship between any of Mind’s ideas. Since each idea is at one with Mind, it must also be at one with all of Mind’s ideas—all of God’s daughters and sons. 

A ray of sunlight receives all that it needs directly from its source, the sun, and doesn’t interfere with the rays next to it. In the same way, we each receive everything we need directly from God, our true source of being. Siblings, spouses, and other people are not the source of love or good. It may look to us as though good comes from people or circumstances, but the source is always God—and that never changes. 

The Apostle Paul assures us, “I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:38, 39).

I saw that no one could hinder my relationship to God, nor I theirs. As Mary Baker Eddy states, “Nothing can interfere with the harmony of being nor end the existence of man in Science” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 427).

This freed me from believing that I needed to fix a problem with my brother. It was clear that the rift between us was an illusion, not a fact. I reasoned that even though I couldn’t see or talk to my brother, our relation to God had never changed, so our relationship with each other must still be intact. Neither he nor I could suffer from the actions of each other or anyone else. 

One morning I woke up filled with love and light, humming the hymn below. I realized I was no longer in pain. I was healed, and very grateful.

When I think of my brother now, I feel only a deep appreciation for all the good he expressed and did and for the love we shared through the years. And I know that his (and my) continuous life in God goes on—unbroken, unhindered, peaceful, and joyous.