The writer of I John was convinced of God's all-embracing love for us. He wrote: "We have known and believed the love that God hath to us. God is love; and he that dwelleth in love dwelleth in God, and God in him." ^{I John 4:16;} We can become more gratefully aware of God's love.

This line from one of Mrs. Eddy's poems beautifully expresses God's nearness and dearness: "His arm encircles me, and mine, and all." ^{Poems, p. 4;}

How can we feel the encircling presence and tenderness of our eternal Father-Mother God? By learning more of the true nature of God as ever-present Spirit, divine Mind, and of man as the offspring, or reflection, of Spirit. Since God is wholly good and the eternal substance of all being, the true creation must be good, spiritual, intact, and complete. It constitutes all reality, and is our real, joyous being.

Christian Science, true to the teachings and healing works of Christ Jesus, reveals that God, divine Mind, knows and loves us as we truly are—each one His spiritual, perfect child, or idea. Humanly speaking, as we discern and accept this wonderful truth and live it, we actually feel God's closeness and loving-kindness—the glow of His tenderness ever with us.

Christ Jesus felt the healing presence and love of God, and he reflected that love in his selfless compassion for all who sought his help. He saw them as children of God. Hence, he healed the sick and sinful and raised the dead to life by knowing man as God's child, perfect and immortal. The very substance of his healing works was a deep love for God and man. Today, God's encircling love, timeless and omnipresent, enables those who turn to it in trust and understanding to heal as he healed through its divine influence.

One day a mother called a Christian Science practitioner for prayerful help to heal her little child of what appeared to be measles. Immediately the practitioner lifted his thought to God, seeking to realize clearly the eternal truth that God, Love, is always in complete control of man. Hence man, the spiritual idea of God, is safe and sound, dwelling in divine Mind.

The practitioner prayed for mother and child to see that because God, divine Spirit, is All, there is no place left for disease to be known or manifested. He declared that right then the child expressed the joy, purity, and freedom of the heavenly Father and knew it. He acknowledged that God, the only creator, made His creation good and immortal, and that the perfection of that creation is unchanged and unchanging. It is the reality of all that exists.

In a short time evidence of the disease disappeared. The redness reappeared, however, just before bedtime. This time the mother knew that the prayerful work had been done and there could be no reversal. She prayed to see only God's perfect child. She recalled that the practitioner had reminded her that she could know of the child, "The real you shines forth right where the supposititious lie about you seems to be, but remember, there is no lie about you."

Later that evening she noticed that the child's face and body were completely clear. The child was healed. No matter how severe a problem may appear to be, through the prayer of spiritual understanding we can rely on Love's care and expect only good results.

Speaking of the eternal unity of God and man, Mrs. Eddy says, "This is the Father's great Love that He hath bestowed upon us, and it holds man in endless Life and one eternal round of harmonious being." She continues, "It guides him by Truth that knows no error, and with supersensual, impartial, and unquenchable Love." ^{Miscellaneous Writings, p. 77.}

Fear is found to be nothing when we gladly know in our heart, "His arm encircles me."