When I lost someone I loved

My Christian Science Sunday School teacher was one of the most important people in my life. She took me under her wing—tutoring me in school and giving me insight into how I could grow as a student of Christian Science. Then she passed away. I didn’t know how to grieve; I’d never lost someone before, especially someone so close to my heart. 

I was so deeply depressed that I couldn’t find a reason to go back to church. I felt so angry and lost, and her passing shook my understanding of God. I kept thinking, How could God take away something so good, someone so special to me and to others? 

I knew that avoiding church would only make me feel further away from God and my Sunday School teacher. I also knew that going back would be hard. Still, I thought it would be a way to feel close to her, so I found my way to a Wednesday night testimony meeting. 

The group at the church was intimate, and everyone had a testimony or some gratitude to share. During the meeting, I felt an overwhelming sense of love, and it filled my heart with so much gratitude to God for giving me the gift of knowing and loving my Sunday School teacher. I felt comfort from being at the meeting, and even though they didn’t know it, the attendees’ testimonies had made me feel safe and at peace. After that, I knew for sure that there was nothing that could stop me from loving God and Christian Science. 

I went home wondering what I could do to feel close to God again. Right away, I saw my copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. I hadn’t touched it in months, but there it was. I turned to a random page because my Sunday School teacher had taught me that Science and Health is full of messages from God just for me. As I flipped to a page, I landed in the chapter called “Footsteps of Truth” where it says, “We are prone to believe either in more than one Supreme Ruler or in some power less than God. We imagine that Mind can be imprisoned in a sensuous body. When the material body has gone to ruin, when evil has overtaxed the belief of life in matter and destroyed it, then mortals believe that the deathless Principle, or Soul, escapes from matter and lives on; but this is not true. Death is not a stepping-stone to Life, immortality, and bliss” (p. 203). This passage meant so much to me because it’s one that my teacher had shared with us in Sunday School. I had this overwhelming feeling of love. 

I realized that I’d felt so imprisoned by the thought of death and loss that I hadn’t been able to see the God-given good and love that were always with me. I saw that this loss did not come from God, because God is Love and the source of all love. And Love doesn’t take anything away; Love is a constant. Sometimes, when I feel like I don’t fully understand Christian Science, that is the one thing that I do know and truly understand. 

I started to cry. I felt God right there with me, and I knew that the love I’d felt from my Sunday School teacher would always be with me, too. Nothing—not anger, not sadness—could touch me. Only the love that I was feeling at that moment was real. God truly is Love, and He showed me that Love will always be with me and that I will always be with Love. 

My grief is completely healed, and I am forever grateful for the freedom that Christian Science brought me during one of the hardest times of my life.