The healing power of Love

How often I hear this: “I just want to stop feeling what I’m feeling.” Especially when the feelings and emotions are painful, difficult, or messy.

But no matter how hard the situations we have to go through, there’s another story going on—a spiritual reality underpinning the events of human life that is a reality of love and belonging, purpose and place. It lifts us above the struggle. And has the power to heal. 

Of course, wanting to stop feeling pain of all kinds—emotional or otherwise—is natural. But if we want to find transformation and healing, we can’t just look to escape difficulties. Finding wholeness and healing means discovering the power of divine Love at work in our lives. It involves a complete reorientation of thought away from mortality into a spiritual reality characterized by a deep, satisfying comfort and peace. 

At times, love can seem absent and beyond us. However, we cannot rely on the evidence of our senses or the feelings that arise in us. The reassurance is that love is not something “out there” that must be located. Real, true love comes from a divine source—God, who is divine Love—and shows us we are already filled, already whole. The “finding” is in discovering that we have it already. We already have immense and amazing love, because each one of us has been created as Love’s individual expression. Christian Science teachings illumine the spiritual fact that the love we think we have to seek is actually divine Love calling to be more fully expressed by us. We are evidence of God, Love, to each other. Dynamic divine Love is witnessed in our expressing and receiving care, affection, commitment, responsibility, and trust. 

We can look to what God, the divine creator, has made us to be to discover the greatest love there is.

This statement by Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, talks about love as an action more than simply a feeling: “I make strong demands on love, call for active witnesses to prove it, and noble sacrifices and grand achievements as its results. Unless these appear, I cast aside the word as a sham and counterfeit, having no ring of the true metal. Love cannot be a mere abstraction, or goodness without activity and power” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 250).

We love others with the love God has given us. Spiritual man is God’s expression of love. As we consistently look for love in what God has given and is giving, we find it already within our hearts. This expands our capacity to love and be loved. Divine Love is continually expressing in us pure joy and spiritual affection. We can look to what God, the divine creator, has made us to be to discover the greatest love there is. This love cannot be turned off and on, and it does not come and go in times of trial. 

The love given to us from God does not pursue or need to be pursued. It does not need to satisfy physical wants. We reflect God’s love to each other; this love is given freely and is natural, creative, unique, and individual. It is always appreciated and always enough. 

This kind of healing love was shown in Christ Jesus’ example. For instance, in the book of John (see 4:7–30), a woman comes to draw water from the town well—in the middle of the day. This was highly unusual, as midday was the hottest time. It would, however, likely have been a time without others there, if someone wanted to be alone and not have to engage other women in conversation. Yet when she arrived, she did encounter someone—Christ Jesus—although she didn’t recognize him. Also unusual was the fact that he was a Jew and she was a Samaritan. They weren’t supposed to interact with each other. 

It was the longest conversation recorded in the Bible between Jesus and a woman. And by the end of it, she had been transformed. When we feel the touch of the Christ-power—the activity of divine Love—it changes us. Yearning to know and embody the same divine Spirit that enriched Jesus fulfills and illumines our God-given purpose and wholeness. 

Love from God transforms us because it brings out the truth of our present perfection as God’s expression. Because Love is never absent, it isn’t something we have to desperately get—it’s waiting to be discovered within us. This Love makes strong demands. It requires us to accept being loved by a God that is all-loving, all-power, all-presence. No one can get outside of this presence, and it renews, refreshes, and regenerates whatever needs to be reset in our lives. Love is the greatest comfort there is.

Larissa Snorek
Associate Editor