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A constant mother-love
Originally appeared on spirituality.com
Mary Baker Eddy, author of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures , understood and felt a mother’s enduring love. In Science and Health, opposite the marginal note “Permanent Affection” (p. 60), she wrote: “A mother's affection cannot be weaned from her child, because the mother-love includes purity and constancy, both of which are immortal.”
All of us can express this constant love that has as its source the Father and Mother of us all, God. And even if we don’t have children, we can follow Jesus’ example in this regard. While he was never a parent, the Master loved children, and actually expressed a lot of mothering love toward others in general, such as his disciples, for example. He was constantly reassuring them and telling them not to be afraid. He even stopped them from quarrelling among themselves, the way a parent sometimes has to do with children.
Of course, it’s easy for us to know good parenting when we see it, especially relative to a little child. The faithful parent can pray for the child every day and let his or her practical care—getting the child to bed on time, feeding and clothing him or her, etc.— flow from that prayer. While in truth a child’s individuality coexists with God in all His perfection, a parent shapes the child’s human expression of his or her individuality.
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About the author
Lyle Young serves as a Christian Science practitioner, teacher, and lecturer. He has 20 nieces and nephews, one of whom lives with his wife, Elisabeth, and him in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
