As I’ve studied Christian Science, I’ve been uplifted by a letter written by Mary Baker Eddy to a branch Church of Christ, Scientist. It reads in part, “. . . may each member of this church rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 165). 

While I was working from home one Monday last summer, I started to feel ill, so I went upstairs to my bed to rest. My husband had recently gotten over being sick, so when he came upstairs and asked why I was lying down, I found myself saying, “I probably have whatever you had last Friday.” 

It felt wrong to say this, though, because it sounded like I didn’t believe that my own husband could consistently “impart truth, health, and happiness.” I had to ask myself: If my “reason for existing” is to impart these things, then wouldn’t this also be true for my husband—and all individuals? Aren’t we all one with God? As the Bible puts it: “Have we not all one father? hath not one God created us?” (Malachi 2:10).