"THANKS! I KNOW that sharing your ideas for an article was just a friendly gesture with no intent to make me do anything, but they really hit home and forced me to think things through more thoroughly. I guess what I've learned is that I am never alone, whether in the middle of the night, on a snow-covered road, at home, or at work. I was forced to see God as my constant companion with His arms ever around me, whispering ever so tenderly of His eternal love. But sometimes I have to ask Him to speak a lot louder!"

A friend wrote this after she'd read some notes that later became an article for this magazine. She had lived with her dad for many years and had never lived on her own, so when her dad passed on, she had to make lots of adjustments. Disposing of her dad's possessions, leaving the home and property she dearly loved, and finding a new home weren't easy. In order to get through this uncharted territory, she says, "I had to learn that God was in charge, because I had never been a homeowner before." The result of her clear understanding that God's love would never let her down was that within six months she had done all that could be done and had moved into a new home, just as it was being finished.

Early in the winter after her dad had passed on, she began thinking of the description of bride in Science and Health. It reads, "Purity and innocence, conceiving man in the idea of God; a sense of Soul, which has spiritual bliss and enjoys but cannot suffer" (p.582). She doesn't know why she was attracted to this definition, but more than anything else, it gave her a new understanding of her role. It prompted her to think of herself as a pure and innocent idea, held safely in God's love. The book of Isaiah also describes the relation between God and His people in terms of a marriage: "For as a young man marrieth a virgin, so shall thy sons marry thee: and as the bridegroom rejoiceth over the bride, so shall thy God rejoice over thee" (Isa. 62:5).

My friend reasoned that whereas a wife would want to respect and care for her husband (and vice versa), God deserves so much more. God is omnipotent, divine Love. He is also the only Mind and intelligence. God deserves our full obedience and devotion. Thus, my friend felt that she should do all she could to love and obey God. She now tries to bring her every thought in line with her highest understanding of God's purpose for her and then to follow that purpose. One result has been that she has found new opportunities to serve her church and her community. She began to see, too, that God's love is showered on everyone, not just on her. She says, "In working with people on a daily basis in the office, I am beginning to see that their needs are being met by God, just as mine are, and that I don't have a personal responsibility to meet these needs so much as an obligation to see that we are all ideas of God, cared for by the same loving Father-Mother."

My friend realized that she was not alone, but had God as her constant companion. She says, "I am getting better at understanding God's perfect love, and I am learning to listen for God's answers when wondering how to handle even the littlest things that need to be done around the house or for the car. God's guidance has proven more reliable than the human advice I used to look for."

If you find yourself needing to make adjustments to your own living arrangements, can you do the same as my friend? Yes, you can. Think of yourself as the idea of God, because in fact you are. Think of yourself as having spiritual bliss. You have every right to accept these statements as true about yourself right now, wherever you are. God is the one infinite, all-loving, divine Mind. To believe that suffering can be a part of God's creation is to believe that there is more than one divine Mind—that there is a mind that can produce suffering, as well as the One that expresses unlimited harmony without a single element of unhappiness. Yet there can be no place in the One infinite God for inharmony. God does not produce or condone suffering.

You have every right to know that God is your constant companion. The Bible has several ways of describing your unity with God—for example, as a child of god, as His son or daughter. This Bible verse speaks of our relation to God as His children: "Consider the incredible love that the Father has shown us in allowing us to be called 'children of God'—and that is not just what we are called, but what we are" (I John 3:1, The New Testament in Modern English, by J. B. Phillips). However you choose to think of your relation to God, you have every right to know that He is with you and is guiding you always. You need only submit yourself to God—trust in His guidance and care.

We each need to be as absolutely sure as a certain little girl was that God answers every prayer. Her grandfather thought that her conviction was foolish idealism, so he challenged his granddaughter. He asked her what she would most like to have. She said she wanted a new bicycle, so she prayed all week long. At the end of the week, there was no new bicycle. The grandfather said, "See, God doesn't answer every prayer." The granddaughter, unfazed by not getting a new bicycle, said, "Yes, He does. The answer was 'No.' " May our trust in God's goodness be as simple and pure as this child's.

God's guidance is present and certain. When you leave your cares with God, you feel His comfort, and your success, according to His direction, is certain. My friend says, "Studying the description of bride from Science and Health over a period of time has made me steadily more self-reliant. My confidence now comes from reliance on God rather than on a person. I am not saying that I understand this completely, but it has been a growing time. This study is awesome and becomes more so each day."