As a youngster I loved the song entitled "Pennies from Heaven," because it conjured up visions of money floating down from the skies. All I had to do was catch it, and I would have all I needed.

While still a child, I had an experience which taught me that our real supply, although not those pennies from heaven I yearned for, is even more joyfully abundant and that this truth can be proved.

Shortly after the passing of my father, our family's income did not match outgo. On one particular occasion there was simply no money for groceries. All day I worried and fretted. Each time I pressed my mother for an answer, she would reply with a statement such as, "God supplies all our needs." At no time during the day could I get her to outline humanly what we were going to do. Almost every statement she uttered was an assertion of Truth—of the absolute fullness, or completeness, of man as God's spiritual idea.

That evening a relative dropped by to take us marketing. We set forth, Mother fully grounded in the conviction that our needs would be met by God. On the way we stopped briefly to visit another relative. At no time was any mention made of our lack of funds. As we were leaving—in fact, the car had been backed into the street—the relative waved and shouted, "Wait a minute." She rushed into the house and returned with some money for my mother in payment for work she had done previously. This sum more than met our immediate needs.

Never thereafter did I accept the common belief that human supply is necessarily dependent upon material circumstances. I recognized that the divine abundance can be demonstrated through spiritual sense—that is, through the perception at least in some degree of the absolute allness of God and the fullness of man as God's reflection. The infinite, inexhaustible nature of true supply, or substance, can be proved in the experience of everyone through the illumination of individual human consciousness. We begin by glimpsing the truth that God, good, is literally All and that as His exact image and likeness, man inherently includes all good. Limitlessness is the measure of man's being, or substance.

Error suggests that we are mortals, caught up in a material environment and subject to circumstances over which we have no control. This persistent suggestion or belief of mortal mind is not true. Man is ever the spiritual expression of God, dwelling in Him. There is never an instant when God and man, His infinite idea, are separated. Consequently there is never a moment when man is severed from his completeness.

In The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes assuringly, "Wholly apart from this mortal dream, this illusion and delusion of sense, Christian Science comes to reveal man as God's image, His idea, coexistent with Him—God giving all and man having all that God gives." ^{Miscellany, p. 5.} In proportion as we separate true consciousness from the dream of mortal existence, we see ourselves as God has created us, absolutely spiritual and complete, lacking nothing. A claim of limitation does not originate with divine Mind, the only true Mind. Consequently limitation lacks validity.

It is simply a phase of the erroneous belief that we are mortal and dependent upon matter for our supply. We have divine authority for reversing these lies with the spiritual fact and thereby demonstrating it.

In today's depressed economic environment with its joblessness and curtailed incomes, we can know that man is God's child, hence not subject to human laws of supply and demand. Economic indicators may rise or fall; they have no impact on God or His ideas. The activity and affluence of divine Mind cannot be circumscribed by material conditions, nor can it be measured or defined by material methods. Because God is infinite, there is no limit to His power, authority, and resources. And man is God's infinite manifestation.

Let's examine that word "infinite." Some definitions read: "subject to no limitation or external determination"; "immeasurably or inconceivably great"; "extending or lying beyond any preassigned value however large." What a wonderful truth! Man's real, spiritual being is infinite, totally free from lack and limitation and from belief in them!

The blessings of illimitable being are ours to demonstrate here and now. We begin by claiming and clearly understanding our relationship to God, the creator of and provider for all His ideas. We read in Miscellany, "Rest assured that He in whom dwelleth all life, health, and holiness, will supply all your needs according to His riches in glory." ^{Ibid., p. 186.} The basic human need is never actually something material; rather it is a fuller comprehension of God and of man, His boundless reflection. Through the prayerful contemplation and utilization of spiritual truths our needs are met.

It is important that we strive not to lose sight of man's spiritual status. Mortal mind constantly asserts in human consciousness the false, material sense of existence with its claims of lack, and this produces fear, doubt, and discouragement. If we listen to error, we start to count our pennies instead of rejoicing in the abundance of our spiritual wealth. Our true supply is not a paycheck or any form of material income. It is the supply of spiritual truths constantly entering consciousness. Embracing them, we can begin to see ourselves as the spiritual recipients of God's unending good.

This exalted vision of the spiritual source of our supply is evidenced naturally in our human experience, and we find all our needs are met.

Elisha provided a magnificent example of how one can utilize spiritual understanding to meet needs. In the incident of the widow whose meager supply consisted of one pot of oil, Elisha with his spiritual insight must have seen far beyond the human situation. He proceeded to give the woman specific instructions.

First, he told her to borrow empty vessels, and he was specific: "Borrow not a few." ^{II Kings 4:3.} Wasn't he leading the woman to empty her thought of belief in limitation and prepare for an overwhelming abundance? Next he told her to shut the door upon her and her sons. She needed to shut out the intruding beliefs of lack and limitation, springing from the more basic false belief that supply is material. Finally, Elisha told her to pour out the oil she already possessed. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mrs. Eddy, "oil" is defined as "consecration; charity; gentleness; prayer; heavenly inspiration." ^{Science and Health, p. 592.} The woman needed to use whatever understanding of God, good, she already had and trust in His infinite provision by pouring out her only pot of oil. Through the widow's fidelity to the prophet's instructions her human needs were met quickly and abundantly.

Christ Jesus' feeding of the five thousand and the four thousand, of course, were unparalleled demonstrations of the illimitable nature of true supply and its present availability.

We too can overcome the limiting suggestions of mortal mind by firmly rooting thought in Spirit and the spiritual facts of being. This means stoutly refusing to listen to error and abiding steadfastly in the consciousness of God.

A word often associated with human supply is "economy." It stems from the Greek words "manage" and "house." Scientifically speaking, the economy we are responsible for is the management of our "house," or consciousness, which is not always an easy job! Often mortal mind uses very authoritative-sounding methods, bombarding thought with negative economic reports and statistics. But error's claims are never authentic. We are ever the heirs of Spirit, God, possessing a rich, spiritual inheritance here and now and always. The recognition of our illimitable, spiritual dimension as the sons and daughters of God defuses error, releasing us from fear and doubt.

Whenever there appears to be a lack of supply, instead of becoming frightened and lamenting the economy, we can immediately challenge and reverse this false sense of limitation and its effects. Our comprehension of the vastness of God and of man's unlimited being as His expression opens to us the vista of infinity. Thought touches the divine, glimpsing man's boundless being as the child of the infinite One.