“Trials are proofs of God’s care,” writes Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 66). This is a challenging statement, especially to someone overcome with grief. But I experienced the truth of it after my mother passed on suddenly some years ago.

I was in my early twenties and had recently moved a thousand miles from home to begin my career. I was far from friends and family. Expressions of love and support from coworkers helped. One letter in particular stood out. It startled me, even. It was from a fellow Christian Scientist, and it read in part, “Don’t be tempted to think that a compartment in your life has been emptied.”

Of course, that was exactly how I felt: that a big chunk of goodness had fallen out of my life. How could he say that it hadn’t? But his statement turned out to be one of the many signposts that led me out of the valley of grief and up to a higher understanding and experience of the indestructible nature of good.