Feeling hopeless? Choose Life
Susie Rynerson
In this Q&A chat, Susie Rynerson, a practitioner of Christian Science, explains that you're never alone, because God, Life, is always present, always caring, even in the darkness of depression.
God's love is like a fountain, says Susie, pouring forth abundant blessings for everyone, always, regardless of what the situation may seem to be.
And when you gain dominion over what Susie calls the "sneaky" thoughts that suggest you may not be as loved, or as successful, or as healthy as you really are as a beloved child of God, you can let go of hopelessness and live a life of peace.
Susie shares the practical spiritual ideas that helped her through a period of deep unhappiness as a college student, and answers questions from site visitors about helping friends overcome depression, handling suicidal thoughts, and the incredible power of gratitude.
spirituality.com host: Hello, everyone! Welcome to another spirituality.com live question and answer audio event. Our guest is Susie Rynerson, a Christian Science practitioner. Susie has a master’s degree in mechanical engineering from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and is still an active alumna with the MIT community. Many years ago, Susie had to deal with the temptation to commit suicide, and she’s had to walk through the valley that maybe some of you are walking through. I’ll know she’ll have helpful ideas to get you out of that valley.
Susie, do you have some comments that you’d like to get us started with?
Susie Rynerson: First, I would just like to say that everyone’s participation today is very valuable. It will be a pleasure to hear from anyone who would like to ask a question, because, you know, we’re never alone in our questions. Others have them, too, so please voice them. And for those of you who might not send in a question, that’s fine. Quiet listening is such a wonderful gift to give.
So, regardless of the role you end up playing today, I’d like to thank you for joining this loving, global family and prayer team. It proves that we’re never alone in searching for answers and solutions.
I look forward to listening to God together, embracing each other with compassion, understanding, and a little fun, too. And without a doubt, each of us will be benefited. Why? All those qualities I just mentioned, such as gratitude, are powerful spiritual means for resolving the issues we’re going to address today, because those qualities have their source in God, or Spirit, and nothing is more powerful than Him.
Speaking of God, Spirit, being the source of those qualities reminds me of a fountain I have in my backyard. Water bubbles out freely and generously at the top and flows down, splashing into larger and larger pools, gurgling happily as it goes, reflecting sunlight, attracting birds, and so on. And I love to watch that fountain and think about how it illustrates Spirit being the source of our life, how everything we are and everything we have and do flows abundantly and naturally from God, is moved by His power and has the same qualities as Him.
This image of a fountain might be familiar to some of you, since Psalm 36:9 says, “For with thee is the fountain of life.” It also highlights some more qualities of God and their healing effect when it says, “How excellent is thy lovingkindness, O God! therefore the children of men put their trust under the shadow of thy wings. They shall be abundantly satisfied with the fatness of thy house; and thou shalt make them drink of the river of thy pleasures.” I feel so loved, hopeful, and refreshed just thinking about that quote. But I also know that any one of many things going on in the world today might not make us feel that way. I know it isn’t always easy grappling with big issues like terrorism, war, corruption, injustice. Or possibly more personal issues like relationships or workloads.
But right in the face of all those things, James 3:11 in the Bible asks a very important question: “Doth a fountain send forth at the same place sweet water and bitter? Can the fig tree, my brethren, bear olive berries? either a vine, figs? so can no fountain both yield salt water and fresh.” Thankfully, then, it makes sense that if God is the fountain of only sweetness, freshness, and life, He naturally provides solutions to bitter or stagnant problems. His pouring out of loving kindness will help us to feel the gentle love that must already be surrounding us, even if we don’t see it right now. God’s generous continuity and trustworthiness will help us to find peace, light, progress, and joy. All these good things can seep into, and absolutely saturate every nook and cranny of life right now, no matter how dry things may seem.
I say that with confidence because that’s the recurring promise and story of the Bible, and I know it’s certainly been true in my life. And equally important, because God pours out life, love, and goodness equally in every direction, that promise and story must be true for everyone listening right now.
So with that, I’d love to begin hearing from all of you.
spirituality.com host: Okay, and we have some people who have jumped in.
Susie: Okay.
spirituality.com host: This is from Linda, who doesn’t tell us where she is, but she’s got a question: “I’ve been locked into a lifelong problem of feeling chronically irritated with people close to me. The suffering has caused me to isolate myself and to have chronic health issues. I feel hopelessly depressed. How can I achieve peace?”
Susie: Linda, it’s so good of you to ask, because asking is really the beginning of exiting that situation. And, you know, there’s a hymn that comes to mind that I just love. It’s Hymn No. 219 in the Christian Science Hymnal, and the first verse says,
O Life that maketh all things new,
The blooming earth, the thoughts of men;
Our pilgrim feet, wet with Thy dew,
In gladness hither turn again.
And, you know, I wrestled with that kind of feeling of being locked in, that maybe my prayers aren’t being answered the way I want them to. But right in that situation, when I turn to God, and I start to honor God and the way He’s been operating in my life, I start realizing that God is answering me, day by day. And actually, the most natural thing in the world is for everything, every moment, to be new. Every snowflake that falls from the sky is brand new. There’s never been a snowflake like it ever before. And every day that comes to you and every conversation and relationship you have with those people close to you can be new every day, just like those snowflakes. So trust God, the source of your life, the source of those relationships, and the source of those snowflakes, to make everything new for you.
spirituality.com host: Lynn in Laguna Niguel is asking, “I met a young man yesterday who has had some mental problems in the past. I think he needs something to live for. What could I say about our purpose in life?”
Susie: Another wonderful question. The thing I feel confident about is that everybody has a purpose. Now I may not know what it is for someone else, but God knows what it is. And the most important thing, I think, to reinforce for people is that they have a one-on-one, direct relationship with God. God is revealing to us our purpose in every moment. And just like I was talking about that fountain being the fountain of life and that Life is sort of like a name for God, Mind also can be a name for God. Mind is the source of intelligence and creativity and good ideas, and this Mind is not a redundant thinker.
Every thought that that Mind has is purposeful. And that Mind is sending ideas directly to that young man that you’ve talked to, and he’ll be receiving them directly from God. Or maybe God will give you an idea to share with him. But no matter what, even if he feels like he’s having mental problems and he won’t get the right idea, that just can’t be true, because God is a very creative and powerful communicator. In the Bible, He’s used a burning bush, He’s used a talking donkey, He’s used so many creative things to get through to people to tell them their purpose, to tell them their direction that we can trust that God will speak to everyone and let them know their individual valuable purpose.
spirituality.com host: You know, one of the things I was thinking about yesterday was that often we have the impression that, “I haven’t done anything with my life until now. And now I don’t know what to do because I’ve wasted all these years.” But all those years—because God is with us always, whether we’re conscious of it or not—have been a preparation for this particular moment. There isn’t any wasted experience.
Susie: Oh, no, never. Never, never, never. And you know, not too long ago, I was watching this TV program and they were highlighting a bunch of wonderful movies. And one that they pointed out to me was a movie that comes out at Christmas time often—I think it’s called It’s a Wonderful Life.
spirituality.com host: That’s it. Yes, a classic.
Susie: Yeah. And there’s this guy who’s feeling like he’s in trouble, can’t pay things financially, hasn’t had a whole lot of purpose and everything. But the way the story develops is he gets this inspiration from an angel, which in the movie is a person. But angels can be just inspirations from God. It’s revealed to him little by little what life would have been like if he hadn’t been there, and it’s dramatic. It turns out that his little itty-bitty acts of kindness and helping his brother and helping his neighbor are things that have saved entire cities and ships in war. So we should never underestimate, not so much what we’re doing, but what God is doing with our life all along, because He’s always at work with us. He’s always doing purposeful things with us.
spirituality.com host: This is from the Reading Room in Ann Arbor, Michigan: “A friend told me she believes she has always had depression tendencies, which she pushed out of mind with lots of activity and lots of friends. But eventually she began to feel stress overload, which aggravated the depression, and she’s having a lot of trouble dealing with both stress and depression now. She’d like to get rid of it forever, not just go back to blotting it out temporarily, only to have it flare up again. Any ideas?”
Susie: Oh, yes. Absolutely. Thank you for asking that. You know, I struggled with depression and a sense of stress when I was in college, and part of exiting that was actually realizing that those feelings of depression and stress were not mine. They’re very hard to get rid of when you think they’re yours. But when you start to realize that these temptations and ideas, “Oh, I’m so depressed,” or “Oh, I’ll never get out of this,” or “Oh…” whatever it may be, those don’t come from the fountain I talked about before. God is the fountain of the ideas that really belong to us. God is the fountain of all that inspiration and life and progress. And that fountain doesn’t send out things like, “Oh, I’m stressed.” That’s another source. That’s not ours.
So the thing to do is to be aware of what is ours. If God is our Father-Mother, our inheritance is from God. So we inherit joy, we inherit strength, we inherit purpose, we inherit progress, and so it’s very natural, like you said, to progress through that valley. Because we start progressing, and we go, “Oh! No, that’s not ours,” and “This is mine.”
Also, something that helped me when I was wrestling with depression is sort of sticking up for myself. I have a right to put this aside. It’s not, Oh, I hope some day maybe I’ll get out of this. It’s, No! In Genesis 1, it says that God gave us dominion. Well, that means, to me, that I have dominion over these little sneaky, creepy thoughts that want to get us down and want to make us stop, and we say No; but then we understand why. We understand, Because God is my life, because God is my mind, and God is on my side, we’re going to walk right out of this, right out of this to the end of Psalm 23, which I love, to the recognition that, “Surely, goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the Lord [of Love] for ever.” And that’s the real promise.
spirituality.com host: I wonder if you could talk a little bit about those “sneaky tendencies,” about why those things crop up in our thinking, that we have to sometimes wrestle pretty hard to get rid of them.
Susie: Yeah. You know, there might be any one of several reasons why they crop up. And sometimes, it’s tempting to sort of analyze, Why did they come? Why am I feeling so depressed? Why am I like this? But sometimes when we get really wrapped up in the Why did this happen? We don’t get progressively looking into Well, how do we get out of this?
There’s this story in the Bible that I love where this happened. Jesus and his disciples are walking along and they pass this guy and he’s seated there, and he’s been blind since birth. And the disciples start going, “Why did this happen to this poor guy? Why was he born blind? Is it his fault? Is it his parents’ fault?” They used the word sin—“Who sinned?”
But Jesus didn’t even go there. He said, You know what, this guy is here to express and love God. And with that, the man is instantly healed. And I think it’s important to be able to take that progressive step from Why is this happening to me? to No, I’m here to express life and goodness and spirituality.
Okay, say a reason for it does come up. Part of my reason for maybe struggling with some of this depression is I was having perhaps a tendency to look at life a little materially. And when you look at life materially, it tends to limit you. It tends to say, You don’t have enough goodness. You don’t have enough friends. You don’t have enough money. You don’t have enough…whatever it may be. So the solution in that case, if you’re looking at life materially, is just switch a little and start looking at it spiritually, and thinking, But God has given me enough love and God has given me the ability to care for others. He’s given me the ability to express the intelligence I have right now, and that will be enough. To keep switching to spirituality—and then the incredible thing is when we do that, when we switch to focusing on God and spirituality and honoring those things, our life starts to blossom, and it’s really a wonderful experience.
spirituality.com host: That’s very helpful. Margaret in San Francisco is asking, “A friend of mine wants to know, when recovering, is it all right to use regular therapy to fight depression?”
Susie: Well, gosh, that’s a really good question, because the world is full of potential solutions for recovery. And I would never claim to know that I know what’s exactly right for any one person. In my experience, the most powerful thing to do has been to start with God, because there is nothing more powerful than God, and experiencing God and feeling God and seeing God at work. And asking God, “What do I do now?”
But the next thing in recovery is starting to trust, I think, the inspiration that comes from God. If you feel that the best thing to do is to go find a group of friends to share joy with, well, then do that. But don’t get stuck in the sense of thinking that “It’s the group of friends that’s helping me.” See the spirituality in that, that it’s God’s love being manifest to friends that’s embracing me, so that if all of a sudden, I’m separated from those friends, I can say, No, you know what? Here God is going to keep on embracing me. Or say that, Okay, one kind of therapy for recovery might be to go walking in the woods. Well, that’s great, but don’t think of it as the mere fact of going walking in the woods. See it as divine Love taking great pleasure in showing you all the beauty and order and natural harmony that there is in the world, so if you’re not able to go in the woods, you can actually see beauty and harmony when everyone actually stops at the stoplight and allows people to go—or whatever it may be. So that whatever you’re doing, it’s giving you the spiritual progress, because I think in the end, it’s the spiritual progress and the spiritual foundation and that relationship with God that provides the lasting solution.
spirituality.com host: I was thinking as you were talking that if someone did go to therapy, one thing that could, in a way, uplift the whole experience for everyone just by keeping their thoughts based in Spirit and recognizing the love of God being present there for everybody and so forth, that basically it could be an experience that helps to uplift everyone and puts it in a more spiritual light, rather than a group of people getting together and talking about the problem.
Susie: Absolutely. That’s a great point because it’s a lot like we talked about with that man who was sitting on the side of the road. If it’s just a bunch of disciples trying to figure out why it happened, that may not be as uplifting as the kind of message that Jesus taught, which I would call a Christ-message. It doesn’t have to be Jesus who’s saying it, but it can be this spirit of uplift, this spirit of affirming God’s presence, and all of our ability to experience God. I would want—me, personally, everyone can choose what’s right for them—but I would want to be in a group of people who were honoring that, that God-spirit that uplifts and has that sense, like you said. I think it’s inevitable that we all bless each other and uplift each other as we go.
spirituality.com host: This next questioner hasn’t given a name, but they’re from Spokane, Washington: “While I’m not suffering from depression, I do experience depression-like symptoms associated with PMS, some months being more disruptive than others. How can this belief be destroyed and healed through the truth revealed by Christian Science?”
Susie: Great question. I think some of that is these sneaky thoughts trying to find a place that justify themselves. For women, sometimes it’s depression or moodiness, or these things try to attach themselves to PMS—“Well, it’s a natural thing when a woman is going through this that she’ll feel depressed.” And you feel better—you’re like, “Oh, okay, I feel better that I’m feeling this way.” But we need to be careful about that. I watch my thought about that, too, to say, “No, my constant state is joy. My constant state is peace and awareness with God.” And in affirming that, I have to see my identity spiritually. A lot of times we identify ourselves as, “I’m Susie Rynerson, this person who lives in Spain and has a life that looks like this.” But it’s really important to move our identity a little bit more spiritually and say, “Actually, I’m the beloved daughter of God. He cares for me every moment. He’s this fountain of good and love, and I am those things all the time.” So these sneaky little things that try to attach them to a little bit more material sense of our identity can be gently weeded away as we start focusing more and more on our spiritual identity.
spirituality.com host: That’s quite helpful. This is from K.D. in Dayton, Ohio: “In dealing with many, many unresolved issues and past traumas, I, too, have attempted suicide, and suffer from major depression. I have repeatedly been given the advice, ‘Just let it go and get over it.’ Or, ‘Move on.’ It’s so easy to appear at peace and happy on the surface, but how is it possible to really let it all go and live at peace and be happy on the inside as well?”
Susie: Great, great question. You know, you remind me of me. Sometimes it’s hard to let go because we think we have responsibility for things, and in the world today it’s right to be responsible. It’s right to try to do the right thing. But if we are taking that responsibility on for ourselves—“I have to do the right thing”—that can be really scary. But instead we can start leaning on God and saying, “Okay, God is going to show me how to do the right thing. And that reminds me of the Beatitudes, which people often talk about, when Jesus says, “Blessed,” blessing can be interpreted as happy,—“Blessed [happy] are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled.” So it’s this sweet promise. You know, “Don’t worry. If you want to do the right thing, God will show you how.”
And then the other thing is a hymn that I really love. Gratitude is so powerful because it tends to break through these tendencies no matter where they’re coming from, because it shuts them off and it makes you aware of how God is working in your life. Often depression is a sense of “Oh, God isn’t here. I’m by myself.” But gratitude starts saying, “Oh, wow. God is here. God is wonderful. God is taking care of me.” I’ll read from Hymn No. 249, again, in the Christian Science Hymnal. It says,
Our gratitude is riches,
Complaint is poverty,
Our trials bloom in blessings,
They test our constancy.
O, life from joy is minted,
An everlasting gold,
True gladness is the treasure
That grateful hearts will hold.
And so I think we need to be constant and holding on to gratitude. It will help us to see that life is minted from joy and progress and goodness.
spirituality.com host: Yes, I’d like to chime in a few words about gratitude myself. One of the things about gratitude that is so powerful is that it keeps your thoughts focused on good. And by virtue of that, it affirms the presence of God even when hopelessness would say there’s no reason to do that. It doesn’t have to be a big thing. Be grateful that you’re breathing. Be grateful that you’re alive. Be grateful that the sky is blue or whatever color it happens to be at the time of the day.
Susie: Absolutely.
spirituality.com host: That you’re in a room that’s out of the weather. That you’re able to sit down or able to walk—or anything, anything. And as you do those seemingly little things, bigger things will become evident, and you will feel God moving in your life. One of the most wonderful tools against evil is gratitude that affirms the presence of God even in the tiniest way. It shines a light that’s like a laser and will cut through.
Susie: I agree. There was a time when I was struggling with this depression, and often there was just one tree outside my dorm room, but I would sit there and look at it and go, “Gosh, I’m grateful for its symmetry, its balance, its beauty,” whatever qualities stood out to me about that tree.
But then the other thing I did is I made sure to recognize that those qualities and those good things weren’t just out there and that I didn’t have them. It was that if I could see them and I could recognize them and love them, those qualities actually existed in me. So this gratitude is really a way of highlighting all the good that is around us and within us, as well.
spirituality.com host: That’s great. Bobby is writing from Fleet, Hampshire, England: “In England, there’s a group of people called Emo’s. They listen to emotional rock music, which makes them depressed. How can we help students like those in my class who are affected by this?” I think that’s a good question in light of some of the events in this United States, as well.
Susie: It is. And, like we’ve said before, your raising of this question is such a wonderful thing, because right now there’s an entire team of people from all over the world who’ve heard that question and who are praying with you. So you don’t need to feel like you’re alone in trying to deal with a group of people that maybe feels bigger than you. It’s important to see this team of people praying. But even more importantly, God is bigger than any issue that might be facing a group of people in your school or even a whole nation or a whole world—that God is bigger and more powerful and more present, and will find a way to speak to them and to uplift them in whatever way is right.
spirituality.com host: One other thing is that I think we can honestly say that it’s not natural for the man God created to be attracted to that which is depressive. And you can affirm the presence of God’s love for them and their own natural spirituality rising to the surface. The desire for goodness and joy is a natural desire. It’s inherent. We’re hardwired for joy, you might say.
Susie: Absolutely.
spirituality.com host: And with that in mind, as you affirm those things, that may help to uplift them and lead them in better paths.
Susie: Absolutely. And it only takes one light, and one little light, to do that. I love the analogy of a closet. There might be a closet that’s very dark and depressing inside. But, you know what, when you open the door, the darkness can’t come out and attack you. It’s like it’s just there, and number one, you open the door, so the light coming from where you were is going to help you, but, gosh, if you walk in with a candle, even a small little candle, or a flashlight, immediately, it dissipates the darkness. This sense of depression and these things, like you said, are not a part of us. And when we recognize just one little glimmer, candle, of joy enlighten these people, it will rapidly and naturally dissipate that darkness.
spirituality.com host: Matthew, who’s in Houston, Texas says, “What would you share with someone who’s extremely depressed about a broken romantic relationship?”
Susie: That’s another sneaky way that thoughts will come in and say, “Oh, my gosh, I’ve been separated from love. Love has been taken away from me.” In situations like that I like to start thinking with God, and think about the ways that He expresses love and unity and togetherness for people. I love to think of God as being infinite Love, and that I have a beautiful relationship with Love—that this Love cares for me, cherishes me, understands me, and takes great delight in making me happy. That Love, that infinite Love, was the source that gave you this romantic relationship in the first place. And that progress is the law. So while you might not be with that person anymore, the only thing that will happen is that a more spiritual and even better sense of Love will come because God is going to keep revealing Himself to us.
I like to think about my unity and my completeness within myself. Sometimes in relationships, when they’re broken, it feels like losing that person, we’ve lost something. But a God that is Love makes us complete already. It’s not that God has allowed us to lose something that we didn’t need and now we’re sort of a half of a person until we find another person to complete us. We have all the good and love and joy and prosperity and opportunities to share with others right now. And we can see that and, again, be firm about that.
I remember one time when I had a romantic relationship that was broken, and I felt so alone. And I was walking down the street thinking, “Oh, I’m so by myself.” And I went, “Wait a minute. No, I’m actually walking with every other person on the sidewalk right now.” And I thought, “Oh, God, thank you for giving me so many wonderful people to walk with.”
Then, I would be sort of depressed and feel lonely, and I didn’t want to go out to dinner or something like that by myself. And I went, “No, no, I’m going to take me out to dinner, or actually, I’m going to let God take me out to dinner.” And as I sat there in the restaurant, and the thought came, “Oh, I’m so by myself,” I went, “No, actually I’m here having dinner with everyone who’s in this restaurant, and I am so grateful for every single one of them.” I loved the people who were near me; I loved talking to the waiter. And it was a lovely experience when I took a little bit of dominion over those sneaky little depressing feelings that say that we should be feeling down, and really started recognizing God and Love and all the opportunities I had to love. And natural, good, happy relationships followed. And we can trust that, because God loves to do that for us.
spirituality.com host: That’s lovely. Bobbie in Indiana is asking kind of a tricky question.
Susie: Okay.
spirituality.com host: “Couldn’t there be a situation when it is better to take your life instead of being a burden financially, being in pain constantly, being a burden to others’ time and efforts and their living of their life, etc.?”
Susie: That’s a great question. Not always easy to answer. But, you know, if God is the fountain of life, and God is giving to everyone, not just you, everything that they need, sometimes it helps us to pray for the people who are around us. Pray for those people—if you feel like you’re being a burden for somebody, recognize that “God is taking care of them, God is supporting them, and God is supporting me.” And this constant pain—it doesn’t have to be that way. You can break out of that.
Mary Baker Eddy is a pretty interesting example on this situation. She was in a pretty rough spot at one point. She’d had a life, 45 years’ worth, of almost constant disease. She’d been married to a man who died after only six months of marriage. They’d had a son, but because Mrs. Eddy was a woman in the 1860s, the boy was removed from her care against her will because her family felt that her persistent challenges with disease made her too weak to care for him, and maybe they felt that he was a burden for them, too.
Then on top of all that, she had an accident which was considered to be fatal. So she had every reason to give up, maybe even take her whole life, thinking she was too much of a burden. But she had a lifelong habit of turning to the Bible. And even though she’d read the Bible a million times and still suffered all these things, she turned to the Bible again. And when she read about a healing by Jesus, and got just a glimpse, but a powerful one, of life being in Spirit. And that changed her life forever. I don’t know if you know about her life, but she became well and spent another 45 years of her life helping and healing thousands of other people. So I’m so grateful that she didn’t consider herself a burden, that she didn’t let the pain overcome her. And I’m grateful that she taught us how knowing the Bible and Jesus’ teachings can enable us to do the same thing. It just doesn’t matter. You have a purpose, everyone has a purpose and can help and heal.
spirituality.com host: I think we could also add that suicide is not actually a solution.
Susie: No.
spirituality.com host: In the sense that there is no benefit. If you commit suicide, you don’t suddenly advance spiritually.
Susie: No. no.
spirituality.com host: Would you like to comment on that a little?
Susie: Well, yeah, I would, because, you know, what that would say is that death is a better friend than God, Life; and I find that hard to believe. Taking your life is like succumbing to the problems and saying there’s no solution. But that can’t be. The message of the Bible is that all things are possible with God. That even in the most dire of situations, there is an answer. And that’s really what liberates. Knowing Life, God is what liberates. It’s not knowing death. It’s not giving up to death. Or, at least, that’s been my experience.
spirituality.com host: And committing suicide doesn’t leave you a whole lot better off.
Susie: No, no.
spirituality.com host: You don’t suddenly escape the problem.
Susie: No, no. I mean, if you think about…a lot of people today are discovering that our experience is the result of our thinking, and that just this one experience of death is not going to change our thinking. It’s really the thinking that needs to change—the thinking that says that there’s no solution, the thinking that says that death is the solution, the thinking that says that God isn’t here. That’s what needs to be shifted and uplifted—and it can be. And it’s so much better to take that little bit of pluck and stand up for yourself and say, “No, I’m going to find Life, I’m going to find God. Well, gosh, darn it, even if I can’t find Him, God’s going to find me. God’s going to talk to me. And I will break out of this.”
spirituality.com host: From the Reading Room in Seattle, Washington, “How can I be most supportive and really feel like I’m helping someone who is contemplating, or even threatening, suicide? It can seem so frightening that you get caught up in the picture.”
Susie: I understand. And the most important thing to remember is that prayer is one of the most powerful things we have to do. A lot of times in this world, we want to be really humanly busy, and will feel better if we’ve said this, and we’ve given them this, and we’ve put them in touch with this person. But the most powerful thing there is to do is to pray. And that’s a prayer that can affirm God’s presence. It can affirm God’s love for that person. It can affirm that we’re hardwired for love and joy and goodness. We can affirm that just a little bit of light can take that person right out of the problem.
I love the story of a woman who was concerned about her daughter. She was involved with a couple of habits that were not real good for her, but there was not real good communication between the mother and the daughter, and the mother didn’t know how to talk to her daughter. So she just prayed. She just prayed that God would find a way to talk to this dear daughter.
What happened is that her daughter had to call information to get a phone number for something—I don’t even know what. But her daughter started having a conversation with the operator, and the operator was the one who told her daughter, “You know, you might really want to get your act together and leave some of those habits”; because they had talked about the fact that this girl was coaching some young kids and she said, “You know, you really want to be an example for these young kids. You really want to help them, don’t you?” And her daughter said, “Well, yes, I do.” And she said, “Well, then, maybe you might want to give up some of those things.”
And she did. Her daughter left those habits. And it was a really wonderful example that prayer is the most powerful thing, and that God will find a way to talk to that person.
spirituality.com host: That’s great. E.J. in Seattle says, “How do we shut out our human experience in order to fully experience our spiritual nature? Is God at all aware of our human condition?”
Susie: That’s a great, great question. In spiritualizing things, it’s important to not shut out our human life entirely because within our human life, there are these beautiful glimpses of the divine and the spiritual. And it’s really helpful to recognize them. I think this goes along with gratitude and seeing the good around you. The thing that actually helped me elevate out of what appeared to be a really difficult, depressing human situation was starting to see the good everywhere I went—seeing the beautiful tree, being grateful to play sports, being grateful that I had friends, seeing the wonder that’s around us, gosh, the wonder of engineering that was there. I was playing music, the wonder of music and how beautiful it is. And letting that awareness of spirituality everywhere lift you. Because if for just one hour I’m trying to shut all that out and focus on God, that’s wonderful, and that’s powerful, and that’s useful, and that can help us be more aware of spirituality when we leave there. But we need to recognize that God is with us all the time, because for me now, that’s what makes life such a joy. I’m in such awe of so many things—of the different languages that people speak, the incredible technology that’s expressed by a plastic cup sitting on the table, or by the computer next to me, or by a mobile phone, and how much intelligence that expresses. You can go around in a wonderful awareness of all the goodness around you. And that, for me, is what has elevated me, not shutting out human life. But letting the presence of God just permeate all of it and uplift it.
spirituality.com host: That sounds great. Now this is a question from Albert in Los Angeles, and he says, “Could you speak a bit about overcoming job-related depression? I live in Los Angeles and I’m an actor. It seems almost universally accepted that acting as a profession appears to be fraught with numerous difficulties. I just want to be about my Father’s business and feel led to doing acting as a profession, but nonetheless, despite lots of prayer and listening, it still feels like a constant uphill climb. How can we overcome a heavy, depressed sense connected with our chosen career? The easy answer is, Just do something else. But that doesn’t seem the right approach to take.” And I think Albert’s question has a broader application to other professions, not just acting.
Susie: Absolutely. Absolutely. Albert, it’s a wonderful question, and it has many branches, so I’ll see if I can get to all of them. But I always like to start with God, because it centers my thinking, and to know that actually, God is my employer, and I don’t have a single talent that God gave me that He doesn’t know about and isn’t going to employ well. And God has a plan that is so much better than anything I could ever outline and do.
So often, whenever I’ve really wrestled with employment issues, I’ve sat down and I’ve said, “Okay, Father, You know who I am. You know the talents that I have. You show me how I can use them to bless.” And to realize that my employment—at one point in my life it was engineering, that was the field that I was in—as I recognized that it was actually larger than just engineering, it was larger than making machines. It was expressing God’s qualities, it was expressing intelligence and order and compassion and teamwork and creativity—the list can be huge—that I was expressing those things, that God would employ those in the right way. That was wonderful.
But another thing I often prayed about, especially in college when I had a lot of things that I loved to do and I wasn’t sure I was going to be able to do all of them, was to recognize that God put these loves in my heart. God put the love of academics and school and engineering in my heart and would give me a way to express them. And not just express them, but express them fully and successfully. And God gave me this love of music, so God would give me the opportunity to express this music in the right way. And God gave me this love of sports, and God would show me how I could express them all. He would put them in harmony with each other. It’s not that music was in competition with sports or in competition with my academics, it’s that all of these things—because God gave them all to me—would work in harmony with each other. And again, God would know the best way to do that. And in starting with God, it takes away all the preconceived things and stereotypes, like the stereotype for acting is it’s just so hard and you have to know the right person… whatever it might be.
But that can’t be if we start with God. If God is your employer, He’s the one who sets down the rules about your life. And gosh, if He’s the fountain of goodness, it’s going to be prosperous, it’s going to be joyful, it’s going to be harmonious, it’s going to be better than anything you’ve ever dreamed. And it’ll be what’s in your heart, because God doesn’t give you a love and then no way to express it. That’s just not what infinite Love would do.
So at least I hope I’ve answered some of the issues you brought up there.
spirituality.com host: Thanks. Lizzie in England has asked a rather provocative but important question: “I often wonder why God created us, and that leads me to think that living is totally pointless. How do we deal with these suggestions?”
Susie: Oh, gosh, Lizzie, what a wonderfully existential question. It’s so great. And again, I think it sends us back to God. One of the most useful things for me in my spiritual progress is to think about who God is. And a lot of times we say, “Yep, I believe in God.” And then we leave it there. But when we know who God is, we start getting a sense of what our life is and what our purpose is. I love some of the names for God that come in a book called Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. It’s the book that’s related to this site. Mary Baker Eddy does a wonderful job in that book of giving us so many different ways of talking about God, and they’re all Bible-based. The idea that God is Love—that comes from the Bible—but she has a wonderful way of highlighting it. So she gives names like, God is Principle. Well, how do you know that God is Principle? By the way it’s expressed. How do you know that God is the Creator? Because there’s a creation. How do you know that God is Love? Well, because there’s kindness and tenderness. And if God were sitting there all by Himself, how do you express kindness if it’s just God? So for there to be kindness and love and harmony, God needs a creation. God needs us. So in order for there to be order, God needs us. In order for God to be Life, the source of life, this fountain—you know, a fountain isn’t a fountain if it’s dry. It needs this vitality and energy and progress and creativity and purpose. So that’s what we are. We are absolutely essential. God wouldn’t be God without us.
So, I would recommend for you in whatever source is most meaningful for you, to really think about and ponder, What is God? And then, What is creation? if that’s what God is. And it’s a wonderfully expanding and purpose and joy-giving exercise.
spirituality.com host: And I think, also, to affirm that you do have a purpose in that creation, a specific one. And that God can lead you to a greater awareness of what that purpose is, don’t you think?
Susie: Absolutely.
spirituality.com host: This one is from Jeanne in the Reading Room in Michigan. She wanted to just tell us a little [about] the impact of the chat. She says, “While listening here to your program, a street person came in, listened a little to it, and wanted to donate something from his pocket collection of one-dollar bills and coins. I think even the little he heard—he caught the words It’s a Wonderful Life—brightened his thought, and he just left now walking straighter with a smiling face and contemplating that he has a purpose, and God has a plan for him.” We just want to thank you, Jeanne, for letting us know that, and we’re so glad that that uplifted his day, and hopefully, yours, too.
Susie: Absolutely. And you know, that’s not just the result of your conversation and mine. It’s a result of this wonderful prayer team that’s out there. I mean, we’ve heard from Los Angeles and Michigan and England. And I just hope that everyone who’s listening recognizes that they’re part of this incredible, powerful network that is moving everyone, from this man in the street to anywhere in the world. Our prayers have a powerful effect. And that in itself is very heartening.
spirituality.com host: It is indeed. Now this is from a caregiver. This is Susie in Pittsburgh, who says, “How can one stay uplifted and joyful when living with someone who is showing extreme signs of depression every day?” That’s an important question, too.
Susie: You bet it is. You bet it is. A lot of times these difficult things greet us right in the face, and we have to deal with them every day. And that’s where, like that hymn talked about, they test our constancy. But fortunately, it’s not our constancy. It’s the constancy of God being expressed in us. I used to think a lot about the definition in Science and Health of oil. Something that makes life go more smoothly is oil. It makes a machine run faster, better, all these different things. Maybe I’ll read that definition.
spirituality.com host: That’s a good idea. Go ahead.
Susie: Oil is “consecration; charity; gentleness; prayer; heavenly inspiration.” And I used to think that I needed to apply those things to a situation to make it run better. But really recently, I started thinking, “Oh, my goodness, God is the source of that. God is the source of my charity. God is the source of my gentleness.” And in thinking about the definition of oil, I put in patience, because I was thinking about patience: “God is the source of my patience. God is the source of my prayer. God is the source of my inspiration. And God will not run out. God will not run out.” So more than trying to figure out, Oh, my gosh, how am I going to muster up enough consecration for today? I would just relax a little bit and say, “Oh, dear Father-Mother, I am so grateful for Your infinite consecration to me, Your infinite consecration to this dear person, and Your infinite qualities. Whatever quality I need in this moment, I will have enough.” And there are wonderful Bible stories about the oil that didn’t run out that will affirm that for you, Susie. So keep going and just keep trusting God to supply for you.
spirituality.com host: J.R. in Oregon is asking a slightly different question: “How does one overcome depression from sensitivity to sounds?”
Susie: Well, there might be some specific things you would want to think about with sound, but, again, I think that’s a lot along the lines of this little sensitivity/depression thing trying to find a home that you think is okay or that you might believe that “Gosh, sound can make me sensitive.” Or “Sound can make me depressed.” But to be firm, to take that book and say, “Well, no, I’m hardwired for love. I’m hardwired for joy. And gosh, sound—that’s how I communicate, that’s where music comes from, that’s how I experience so much good in the world.” And God can’t be a fount of good and evil. If God makes sound, if God makes this communication that is so rich and beautiful and purposeful, it can’t come with bad things attached to it. It can’t make you sensitive, it can’t make you depressed. “It can only uplift me. It can only make life better.” And when you’re firm in those spiritual ideas, that’s a kind of prayer. That’s a prayer that’s based in the understanding of God. It’s a scientific prayer. It’s not a, Gosh, I hope maybe I’ll think something right and it might have a result. It’s that “I’m following the teachings of Jesus. I’m following something that’s been functioning throughout the Bible for thousands of years. And, again, it’s not so much something I’m doing, it’s a law of God that is embracing me. It’s a light that’s dawning. It’s irresistible. So this sensitivity is out of luck. It’s going to go. It’s got to go. Because God loves me just way too much.”
spirituality.com host: Morgan in Columbia, Tennessee, has written a question: “I’ve had small evidences that the good is cutting through all the negativity I’m experiencing, and it’s being evidenced in my current life status. But I’m constantly having to battle the human expectations of where my life should be. Not only on the career/financial front, but on the relationship front. What specific metaphysical work do you apply to assist someone who has a pretty clear intellectual understanding of the absolute truths Mary Baker Eddy taught, but is struggling to see these truths manifested in their human experience?” That’s a good question.
Susie: That’s a wonderful question. Again, we’re not alone in these questions. I think everyone has grappled with these things, and there are wonderful examples all over the Internet, on spirituality.com, that talk about wrestling with these things.
Let me first address the part of your question that has to do with intellectuality. I love being intellectual. I love reading. I love knowing the full quote. But, you know, sometimes the things that have been so powerful for me, it’s just a statement like, “God is Love,” and to really feel that. I would almost encourage you to just focus on that, because there’s nothing like finding all the different ways that the world says to me, “God is Love.” If you snuggle up in your bed—I love this, I’m snuggled up in my bed and I have my comforter on top of me, and I go, “Gosh, this is just a little symbol of the infinitely warm and tender and comforting way that God embraces me all the time.” Or if I look at a flower in the yard, and I go, “Oh, that’s so beautiful”—Mrs. Eddy talks about how flowers are “hieroglyphs of Deity.” They’re hieroglyphs of Love that, gosh, look at the love that formed these incredible petals, these beautiful leaves. And that’s the love that has formed every part of my life.
If you walk through the forest, you see all sorts of flowers planted together, and I don’t think any one of those flowers is going, Why on earth did you plant me here? Like the other day, I was walking through the woods, and there were so many of these different kinds of flowers, and then there was this one totally different one. But it was there, and it was blooming, and it was doing great, and it was expressing so much individuality and it was incredible. So really feel these ideas that you’re reading, and get to their essence and their simplicity, and just bask in them. Let yourself baste overnight in the idea of God is Love. Maybe you baste for three days in God is Love, and then spend another three days basting in the idea that God is Life. And those, like you said, those are the spiritual ideas that will continue to cut through sort of the material definition of what your life should be and help you see more of a spiritual sense of what life should be.
And then, one other thing, I love this statement, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” A lot of times we think we’re going to know the truth, and then we’re going to make ourselves free. And it’s just, know that truth, baste in that truth, and then go, “And you know, what, that truth is going to do its job. I trust it, it’s at work. It’s been working forever. It’s working on everybody, and it will work for me.”
spirituality.com host: Loraine, who hasn’t given us a location, has sent a question: “Many years ago, I made a poor choice, resulting in a baby and marriage at a young age. The ensuing years have been pleasant enough, but I often wonder whether my life would have taken a different, happier course, if I had not been so willful back then. How does one deal with this tendency to look for past causes to explain a present outlook that is not joyous?”
Susie: There’s so much of a tendency in the world today that when we make a mistake, either someone else is beating us up, or we take great pride in beating ourselves up.
I had an experience once that just really lifted all of that off of me. I was coaching a girls’ high school lacrosse team. We’d had a really nice season, and it was the end of the season tournament. And it was in a really rural town far away, and I had driven there once before, so I knew where I was going, and I was confident in my arrival. I had all the equipment for the team in my car, and I was driving along and then all of a sudden, I realized I was hopelessly lost. I had no phone numbers for the school where I was going, I didn’t know the name of the school where I was going. I didn’t have any phone numbers for any of the students or their parents—and I was lost. It was not like I could pull over at a gas station, either, and ask directions, because it was very rural, and I had nothing to say.
And I began to just absolutely berate myself. “Susie, you are so dumb. You should have had all this information, and now that team is going to suffer—they’re not going to have their equipment. They’re not going to know where to be on the field. They’re not going to know how to warm up. They’re going to be totally lost.” And I was absolutely shredding myself.
And then all of a sudden, this little inspired thought came along and said, “You know what, God isn’t talking to you that way.” Okay, how is God talking about me and thinking about me? And it was Love. It was this idea that God is always there to redeem and to uplift and to turn things around in a way we could never imagine. I felt like my situation was absolutely hopeless. There was nothing I could do. But I could pray. So I thought,Okay, I’ll do what I can do. I’ll turn my car in the right direction, and I’ll pray—or at least what I think is the right direction—and I’ll pray.
After not too long, I got a phone call on my cell phone from a friend I had not seen in more than a year, who happened to know that I coached lacrosse, who happened to live near the lacrosse field, who happened to see a sign for the lacrosse tournament, who happened to be interested in going out, who happened to find my lacrosse team, and find out what was wrong, who happened to know the phone number of a friend of mine who had my phone number. He called them, got in touch with me, could give me directions on how to arrive. I gave him the starting lineup for the team, and I continued to pray, and I continued to think, I was not the one responsible for all of our practices all season. It was God who was caring for these girls, it was God who was coaching them, it’s God who’s with them right now. God will provide them all the equipment they need, the inspiration they need to warm up, the inspiration they need for whatever it might be.
So eventually, I arrived at the field. And I was late—and I ran up to the field and everyone said "Hi" to me from the field. And, you know, we played great. There was no penalty. They had all the equipment they needed, including goalie equipment. They had warmed up well. They had played well.
It got to the end of the game, and they said, “Hey, Susie, can you show up late more often?” because it had turned out so well. They’d been so cared for. Maybe that was just coaching lacrosse, and other situations like family and things feel bigger. But I feel like the message is the same. It doesn’t matter how stupid it looks like you might have acted. God is there to redeem and to save, and that no one’s going to be punished because of you. God’s taking care of you, God is taking care of your son. God is taking care of everyone, and is only there to uplift and to make things beautiful in a way you could never imagine. So don’t worry.
spirituality.com host: We have two last questions. And they are slightly off-topic in some ways. I thought we’d do those before we conclude.
Susie: Sure.
spirituality.com host: This one is from Helane in Jupiter, probably Jupiter, Florida, Reading Room, and the question is, “Any words on the suicide bombers?” And I thought we could answer this one because, again, it is a way that suicide attempts to glorify itself and make itself seem like it’s a good idea.
Susie: Yeah, yeah, it does. And it also tries to say that we’re helpless in the face of it.
spirituality.com host: Yes.
Susie: I had an experience once that maybe I’ll share briefly. When I was in college, I was at a fraternity party near the house that I was living in, and it was very late at night. And there was a man there who had gotten very drunk and was starting to cause problems. He was a very big man. It wasn’t like someone could walk up to him and say, “Hey, man, it’s time to go.” He was out of control, he was not in his right mind. And he started threatening people.
And to make a long story short, I was given responsibility for resolving the situation. I threw myself into God’s care, and I said, “Okay, Father-Mother, I don’t know how to do this.” I felt very new in renewing my study of Christian Science at the time, so it wasn’t like I felt incredibly equipped to deal with it. But I knew God was equipped and God was there.
The thought that came to me was that God is Mind and that infinite Mind is the mind of this man and is my mind and will express itself here. And I will just pause and wait and be here and wait for God to reveal His plan.
Well, what happened is, there was a roomful of people and this man was threatening to kill people. But all of a sudden he sat down and he looked across the room, and he looked directly at me, and he invited me to come over and sit down next to him and talk to him. He started talking to me about all sorts of things. He talked to me about his school, he talked to me about his fraternity, he talked to me about his sports. And I just listened to him, and I did my very best to love him, to love the spiritual qualities he was expressing, to appreciate his athleticism, all those things.
And he paused in the middle of the conversation, and he looked at me and he said, “Thank you so much for listening to me.” I said, “Well, sure.” And then he kept talking. And finally someone who I had called to come pick him up arrived. And when this man arrived to pick up his fraternity brother, the guy I had been sitting next to who had originally been incredibly violent stood up, like a gentleman, took my hand, kissed my hand, and said, “Thank you for a lovely evening,” and walked out the door. I was so thankful. I knew it was God that had done this.
And then the other thing that happened—about two years later, is I happened to be in the cafeteria and I happened to be in line behind a woman who was a counselor on our university campus, so we decided to sit next to each other. And she happened to start telling me about a person who fit the profile of this guy incredibly. He lived in one of the most notorious fraternities on campus, he’d been having problems in athletics, he’d been having problems in the fraternity, he’d been having problems in school, and they were very concerned about him—and then all of a sudden, something happened, and his life turned around. He started to be better behaved. He started to do better in these activities. And to me, it was like God tapping me on the shoulder and saying, “You know, this is the effect that simple listening and loving and confiding in God can do.”
So I think that these suicide bombers—their thought can change, because God is Mind. And God is there, and God is always present with a solution. When we turn to God, there is a solution. And not only is it a solution in the moment, it can be a solution that uplifts the world afterwards.
spirituality.com host: That’s so true, because I know of at least one case of a suicide bomber deciding not to go forward with their intent. So you’re absolutely right. It can change.
Now this one is a little bit further off the subject. It’s from Barry in San Francisco, and I thought, however, that there are people with this problem who do experience depression, so it seemed like it would fit: “Someone I know has been struggling with pain in his legs for a while. Can you share some thoughts?” I think physical difficulties often do seem to lead people to have to deal with depression. I don’t want to build a cause-and-effect there, but just that sometimes this does occur.
Susie: You know the Bible says, “Seek, and ye shall find,” and it’s so beautiful that you are seeking. You will find. God is so gentle and kind. It talks about if we as human parents know how to give good things to our children, God will do the same thing. When we ask for inspiration, God doesn’t give us a stone. He gives us bread, He gives us daily bread. When I’ve struggled with things that have gone on longer and they’ve really wanted to frustrate me, it’s helped me to analyze day by day, “Gosh, when I prayed that day, I got the inspiration I needed.” And “Gosh, when I prayed that day, I got the inspiration I needed.” And to then think about the story that’s coming to me of the woman who had the issue of blood for so many years, but still didn’t lose hope, and went to go see Jesus. And you have to imagine her situation. Here she is, she’s having an issue of blood. She probably shouldn’t be up walking around. She probably shouldn’t be a woman by herself. She probably shouldn’t be in this crowd. But she was so convinced and had felt for sure that there was something in this Christ, Truth, something in this love that this man was expressing, that if she could just get a kernel, just an itty-bitty bit of it, it could change her life. And that’s what happened.
So, I would say to you, sometimes we put up these big obstacles—“Oh, my gosh, in order to have this healing, I have to understand all these things.” But no, it can just be the smallest kernel, and it is God’s great pleasure to give you the kingdom. And like the Lord’s Prayer says, “Give us this daily bread.” God is doing that day by day. The spiritual interpretation that Mrs. Eddy gives us is, “Give us grace for to-day; feed the famished affections.” And that’s what God is doing right now with your friend. Every day, God is feeding your friend. And He’s feeding him with grace, and loves him and cares for him. And that will be enough. That’s enough to heal.
spirituality.com host: Thanks, Susie.
Susie: You bet.
spirituality.com host: Do you have any final thoughts you’d like to share, some summary ideas that you might want to send people away with?
Susie: Oh, gosh, it’s been so rich. Again, I’m thankful for everybody’s questions. Just asking the question is healing. I’m grateful for all the people who are out there praying, supporting this.
Something that came to mind recently—I was working late at night on something, 2:00 in the morning. And all of a sudden, I heard a bird singing. He wasn’t just sort of peeping—like, Oh, oh, I’m awake, and I’m peeping till I fall asleep—he was singing up a storm.
My first thought was, What are you doing singing at this time of night? But then, all of a sudden, I went, Wait a minute. Now is a great time to sing.
And so the next night, I happened to be up again, and this same bird was singing. And I thought, we should be siding on the side of singing, no matter what time of day it is, no matter whether the world thinks we should be singing or not. And we should be singing in full joy, because that’s what we’re wired to do, and know that…maybe this little birdie was just singing for himself, but gosh, he was certainly inspiring me, and I hope he inspires all of you, too.
Citations used in this chat
Science and Health
King James Bible