Two years ago, I felt it was important for me to purify my thought. I had prayed to God to help me overcome whatever would stand in the way of healing, and I was led to this passage in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “Teach your student that he must know himself before he can know others and minister to human needs. Honesty is spiritual power. Dishonesty is human weakness, which forfeits divine help. You uncover sin, not in order to injure, but in order to bless the corporeal man; and a right motive has its reward. Hidden sin is spiritual wickedness in high places. The masquerader in this Science thanks God that there is no evil, yet serves evil in the name of good” (p. 453).

So I sincerely prayed about having hidden sin in my thought uncovered. One of the things that came to me to work on was forgiveness. One way that idea helped me immensely, then and now, was to see everyone’s innocence—to see in everyone the child of God, the man, male and female, of God’s creating described in Genesis 1. But there were some things that had happened in my life that I found very difficult to forgive. I couldn’t seem to be completely free of anger, resentment, hurt feelings, self-righteousness, and guilt. 

Ideas from a talk given by an experienced Christian Scientist helped me realize that to forgive is to let myself out of a prison created by those bad feelings. That got me praying to forgive even more. Looking up many passages on forgiveness in the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings helped me gain a greater understanding.