“This can’t be happening to me!” I thought. I’d begun having episodes of forgetfulness—from names of people eluding me to leaving food cooking on the stove unattended. I’d heard people jokingly refer to these lapses as “senior moments.” However, this was no joke to me. Not only because of practical concerns, but because I viewed these forgetful episodes as blatant denials of divine Mind’s perfect, continuous knowing of itself and its creation, and of my God-given ability to reflect this continuous knowing. God was the only Mind I acknowledged. I knew I possessed no other, and that forgetfulness was a fallacious misconception of that one true Mind of man (meaning all of us). It was the belief of a supposititious mind in matter, termed in Christian Science mortal mind or error.

It is this fictitious mentality that seems to promote a tendency to forget. This inclination stems from an ignorance of the one infinite Mind, God. It suggests that we possess a personal, material mind apart from God­—that a physical organ called the brain is the seat of conscious thought and its functions. Furthermore, it is believed that if this brain declines because of age, deteriorates due to disease, or is damaged in any way, we lose our capacity to reason or think clearly. But this would make matter more powerful than God, Mind.

To disregard these errors or neglect to correct them would only allow them to grow in thought. Instead, we can open our thoughts to Christ, the light of Truth in human consciousness. Christ enables all God’s loved children to possess the “sound mind” the Bible speaks of (see ll Timothy 1:7).

There are no memory lapses in Mind (God) or in any of us as God’s reflection. 

My search for healing of the forgetfulness began by honoring God and acknowledging Him as the source of man’s precise, acute, and accurate thinking. I claimed my divine right to clear, decisive attentiveness as Mind’s reflection. Whenever a word or name eluded me, I would quietly stop and pray, affirming that because I reflect God, I have the same Mind that was in Christ Jesus (see I Corinthians 2:16). Another verse from the Bible became my prayer: “Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5). Then I would wait on God to reveal what I needed to know. Although in the beginning this sometimes took time and patience with myself, inevitably the name or word would come. Step by step, as I persisted, words came more quickly to thought. Each time this happened I praised God as the only source of my, and everyone’s, consciousness.

Then one day in prayer I realized very clearly that Mind doesn’t remember, if we define that word as recalling an idea that had been lost from thought; rather, Mind knows and never forgets. This was a revelation. I saw that Mind dwells in the eternal now and is always knowing everything in the present moment! I saw that there are no memory lapses in Mind, in me, or in any of us as God’s reflection. Because we are each the image of Mind, we can know what we need to know when we need to know it. This was the healing truth I had been looking for.

From that point on, whenever I was occupied and something else needed my attention, like my cat needing to be let in or a phone call that needed to be made or food in the oven that needed to be checked on, this need would come clearly to me. I realized I wasn’t remembering to do something; the knowledge of what needed to be done at that moment was coming to me directly from God as a result of His present all-knowing. This didn’t mean God knew of the human particulars in my life, but God was always causing me to be aware of and alert to what needed my attention. All-knowing is the first attribute given in this definition of God in the Christian Science textbook: “The great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 587).

The ability to always be alert and awake is the divine right of all God’s children, and this can be expressed in countless practical ways. 

I realized that to claim this capacity as mine but not another’s was selfish. This wasn’t a personal ability, and I saw it was incumbent upon me to prayerfully acknowledge and cherish this as true for all humankind as well. With beliefs of mental illness, brain injuries, and Alzheimer’s disease rampant in the world, there is an urgent need to claim the truth of man’s ability to think rightly, for the benefit of all—for seniors, certainly, but also for college students, schoolchildren, law enforcement officers, government officials, teachers, scientists, and so forth. Confusion, fuzzy thinking, distracted thinking, and dullness are no part of the divine Mind and therefore can’t be experienced by man, God’s very own image and likeness. As Science and Health says, “The belief that a pulpy substance under the skull is mind is a mockery of intelligence, a mimicry of Mind” (p. 192).

I had an opportunity to put the truths discussed above into practice one day when my husband burst through the kitchen door. He had just left moments before for an important appointment, but he’d forgotten his wallet. A quick search of the usual places didn’t turn it up and he was becoming agitated because he couldn’t remember where he’d last seen it and was afraid he’d miss his appointment. 

I became quiet, realizing that I was there to witness divine Mind’s faultless knowing. I saw I didn’t need to race around with my husband trying to find something. I just needed to hold prayerfully to what previously had unfolded to me—divine Mind doesn’t remember; it knows. My husband didn’t need to remember where his wallet was through a personal, human capacity which would reveal it to him. He reflected God and God’s knowing. 

I became quiet, realizing that I was there to witness divine Mind’s faultless knowing.

I acknowledged that what God knows, His manifestation—man—knows. And this proved to be true. My husband suddenly ran to the basement and came up with the wallet. I asked how he knew where it was, and he said it just suddenly came to him where to look.

How wonderful to be able to demonstrate in everyday life that we have the Mind which was in Christ Jesus—the unfailing, all-knowing divine Mind. And small victories lead to larger demonstrations of the power to know as God knows—in our lives and in the broader world as well. 

The sixth tenet of Christian Science is a mandate placed on each follower of Christ Jesus: “And we solemnly promise to watch, and pray for that Mind to be in us which was also in Christ Jesus; to do unto others as we would have them do unto us; and to be merciful, just, and pure” (Science and Health, p. 497).

This is a holy obligation we can always remember—and carry out!