No imperfection

Recently I came across a small piece of paper I used to carry with me in my wallet for its inspirational message. On it was a statement Mary Baker Eddy wrote to one of her students: “The book Unity of Good was needed or it would never have taken about six months to get that little book published. The way is always blockaded in proportion to the weight of good that is to be carried over it . . .” (Mary Baker Eddy to Ellen Brown Linscott, March, 10, 1888, L08753, © The Mary Baker Eddy Collection).

Mrs. Eddy wrote Unity of Good as the result of an experience she had with a student of hers who was a theologian. She had felt he held great promise, but in spite of her effort to spiritually reason with him concerning a fundamental doctrine of Christian Science—that God knows no evil—he never conceded the point. I love to think about how Mrs. Eddy responded to the circumstance with the unyielding student by writing and publishing this remarkable little book. No amount of resistance from the student concerning the truth being shared with him, nor any later resistance to the publishing of the book, could thwart the blessing it contains.

Considering the ideas on that small piece of paper in my wallet, I thought about the examples Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy set for us. It seemed the more of the Christ they expressed, the greater the resistance they encountered. And the greater the resistance they encountered, the higher they rose in their demonstration of the laws of God’s goodness.

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