Feeling God’s love again
It’s not always easy to trust God. Even when prayer is almost instinctive for us, we can still feel powerless in the face of our problems and disconnected from God.
Lots of my friends who are Christian Scientists have expressed difficulty connecting with the ever-present hope that Christian Science presents in its teachings. We can make excuses for not praying—that we don’t have time, that we’re too tired, or that we don’t know if anything good will come of it anyway. And sometimes, hearing people say that everything is OK because God loves us doesn’t reach us if we’re having a hard time seeing the world through that lens. I’ve definitely felt this way. But I’ve also seen how that feeling can change.
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Last January, I joined a prestigious choir program for high schoolers that involves singing with professional adult musicians. I have always loved singing, and I developed the skill mostly by singing hymns in Christian Science Sunday School.
Choral music often celebrates God, but beyond singing Sunday School hymns and my choir pieces, I didn’t really rejoice in God’s goodness. I struggled to identify with the idea taught in Christian Science that God is perfect and good, so, as His creation, we’re also perfect and good. This was especially true because I was acutely aware of how everything in the world seemed to be going downhill—and how it seemed like I could do so little about it. It affected every part of my mindset. I found myself struggling to keep up with my school assignments and constantly comparing myself to others in my choir.
As our concert approached, the stress became even more difficult to handle, especially since I would be performing a solo. I tried to pray, but the ideas I thought about felt so far from what I was experiencing. I did my best to hold to the idea that by performing music, I was doing a good thing, so only good could come out of it for me and for others. I also tried to know that since God was supporting me, everything would work out.
At the beginning of dress rehearsal, our director shared this quote by Leonard Bernstein, whose music we’d be singing in that concert: “This will be our reply to violence: to make music more intensely, more beautifully, more devotedly than ever before.” I was overcome with a sense of determination and passion.
For the rest of that day, I thought about how music is an expression of God’s harmony and how I was helping to bring out that harmony by making music for my community. As Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “The realization that all inharmony is unreal brings objects and thoughts into human view in their true light, and presents them as beautiful and immortal. Harmony in man is as real and immortal as in music. Discord is unreal and mortal” (p. 276). That passage made me think about how, by singing for my community, I was actively proving the spiritual law of harmony and how it governs us all. I could do nothing but my best!
The next day, I arrived for the concert feeling peaceful and prepared. Even though I had to perform a solo and hit some exceptionally high notes that I’d struggled to reach the day before, I was fearless. Regardless of the large crowd and high expectations, all the love I had for my choir and the people around me bubbled up in me, and I sang better than I could have hoped for. The presence of God, divine Love, was all around me, and I couldn’t help but perceive and feel it. I was overcome by an astounding sense of wonder and love for everyone.
Since this experience, I’ve felt re-inspired to trust God in everything I do, to look to Him for comfort and stability when things seem like too much, and to know that God is always there for me. I have also found it much easier to pray and not to feel overwhelmed by all the difficult things we appear to face. I understand now that even if it seems like we can’t find the right words for prayer, evidence of God’s love is never far away.
