You’re not the exception
For a long time, I thought the inspiring ideas I’d been hearing in Christian Science Sunday School were great, but probably didn’t all apply to me.
Like, I could accept that I expressed God in some ways, but I didn’t think I expressed God in other ways. For example, I’d learned from reading the Bible that we are created in God’s image and that everything He made was very good. It’s a nice idea—and, sure, I felt I was a good person and moderately good at using my talents. But when I looked at myself, I wasn’t convinced that all of God’s qualities—like beauty, grace, and radiance—were really there.
Sometimes, in Christian Science, we talk about spiritual perfection—the spiritual law that because God, Spirit, is perfect, we, as His spiritual reflection, are also perfect. I definitely didn’t think this applied to me. I couldn’t have felt further from perfection if I tried.
In looking at myself, I wasn’t convinced that all of God’s qualities were really there.
But I’m learning through my study of Christian Science that I am not the exception, because if there were exceptions to a scientific law, it wouldn’t be a law.
A few years ago, I had an experience where I learned this in a way I’ll never forget. It started when I realized I was shedding more hair than usual. This made me nervous because I’d already dealt with hair loss when I struggled with an eating disorder. (You can hear that healing here, on the May 6, 2024, Sentinel Watch program titled “Why I left Christian Science—and why I came back.”) I felt I was rewinding to that time in my life when I’d felt terrible about myself. And I was worried that my naturally thin, fine hair would become even thinner. To put it plainly, I feared I was going to get uglier.
I decided to contact a Christian Science practitioner to pray with me, since I’ve had many healings in Christian Science. I knew I could speak to this practitioner without embarrassment or fear of judgment.
We talked about thinking less about the word perfection and focusing more on the idea that I was wholly good. I wasn’t convinced that this would do anything to stop me from losing hair at a rapid rate. But I thought I could give thinking of myself as included in God’s law a try. And being included in God’s law meant that I must express beauty—not because I had shampoo-commercial hair, but because I reflect God, good, and that includes every good quality.
I also thought about a sentence that a friend shared with me from a book by Mary Baker Eddy called Retrospection and Introspection. It says, “Science is the prism of Truth, which divides its rays and brings out the hues of Deity” (p. 35). This image helped me see that God is our source, and though we each bring out the hues of loveliness in our own way, we are the complete expression of that loveliness, including every “color.”
I thought about these ideas as I washed my hair, focusing on what I was learning rather than on the fear that I would lose more clumps of hair in the shower. After I got out, I wrapped my hair in a towel and sat down, really feeling loved by God and maintained by divine Love, including every hair on my head. God couldn’t be God if there could be anything wrong with His good and perfect creation. I was not left out of God’s love or the completeness of what He made.
After a few minutes, when I felt totally at peace, I unwrapped my hair from the towel to find that I was, in fact, not bald. When I messaged the practitioner this exact thought, we laughed at the silliness of it. And we could laugh about it because I had a firmer understanding of my relation to God as His wholly loved, completely beautiful reflection—no exceptions.
God is our source, and though we each bring out the hues of loveliness in our own way, we are the complete expression of that loveliness.
The shedding immediately slowed to a normal level and has stayed that way ever since. In fact, my hair is the healthiest and thickest it’s ever been. But what I learned—that I’m not left out of good or lacking any of God’s qualities—has become the most valuable part of this healing. Realizing that I wasn’t the exception to God’s law and that I express God as completely as everyone else has helped me in so many other areas of my life, too.
You’re not the exception to God’s law, either. You are, in fact, the expression of God’s law—wholly good and loved.
