Does some incident of the past nag you today? A heartbreak? A blighted hope? Frustrating misunderstanding? A moral misstep? Or a recurring mental flashback of some tragic event you witnessed?

Christian Science cleanses the unhappy record of yesterday. Indeed, it goes much further and leaves no voids, no blank, no unwritten pages. Crucifying experiences are translated into positive resurrections inspired and reanimated by the Christ.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, defines "Christ" as "the divine manifestation of God, which comes to the flesh to destroy incarnate error." ^{Science and Health, p. 583;} We do not have to change locale to be released from anguished bygones. But we need to listen to the Christ within. The Christ is what we hear of the voice of God speaking to the heart, waking us to the immortal truth of eternal being. The Christ brings wonderfully new and glorious discoveries of life as it really is. But to enjoy heaven's bounties, one must willingly, and resolutely, part with old habit patterns such as thoughts of limitation, discord, and fear.

Perhaps you protest, "Oh, I've tried! I've sincerely striven to eradicate dark memories. And I simply can't." But the grace of God, the tender, compassionate Christ, can help us do this. Because the Christ so permeated his being, Christ Jesus was able to liberate people from devilish torments, heal disease, restore lost sight and lost hearing, provide amply where no money or little food had been.

The cleansing of past or even present calamities can be swift and immediate. Prolonged and painful bouts with error are not necessary. This was illustrated to me some years ago by a simple experience when, as a new student of Christian Science, I was wrestling with what seemed to me to be some very complicated problems. I was standing on the boardwalk skirting a wide stretch of beach. Holiday crowds had left the sand strewn with picnic refuse. To me, each discarded scrap of paper and every empty carton symbolized some aspect of carelessness, indifference, sin— mortality.

For weeks in my study of Science I had been seeking to comprehend the Apostle Paul's statement that we are saved by grace rather than by works. He said, "By grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God: not of works, lest any man should boast." ^{Eph. 2:8, 9;} But what was grace? Could grace lift the crushing burden of personal responsibility? Amend the harm done by jealousy? Usher in health and sufficient supply?

I had pondered dictionary definitions of grace, and in one of Mrs. Eddy's books I had read that Christian Science heals not only disease but also false appetites, and reforms character, and that "all this is accomplished by the grace of God,—the effect of God understood." ^{Christian Science versus Pantheism, p. 10;} Grace—"the effect of God understood"! But I still did not understand God, grace, or the enigma of problems.

What confronted my gaze on the beach was a sorry commentary on carelessness. However, reminding myself that I was studying Christian Science and not people, I looked above the cluttered beach to the ocean beyond. The tide was coming in. One wave, larger than the others, swelled in a mountain of water, crashed, and swept in a swift arc across the beach. Receding, it carried the debris with it. "And the place thereof shall know it no more," ^{Ps. 103:16;} I said to myself.

The lesson for me was that the wave knew nothing of condemnation or fixing blame, or who had left this or that. Guilt existed only as a nameless negation—nothingness. The wave, obedient to the controlling tides, performed its function. I thought what a miracle it was that the wave cleansed everything it touched! But no, it was not a miracle—only the inevitable effect of the wave's nature.

Suddenly that wave symbolized for me the grace of God. And the effect of that grace was the wiping out of my troubled doubts and confusion, revealing instead the compassionate Christ of mercy and boundless power. Now I understood! We are not only recipients of grace, but through Christliness, through love, we can effectually turn crucifixions into resurrections.

Of course, symbolism can never substitute for eternal verities. But symbols, like parables, sometimes serve to make spiritual facts comprehensible to human consciousness, to quicken spiritual sense. So whether problems are acute or corrosively chronic, whether harassment occurred this morning, last month, or forty years ago, the Christ, God's loving grace, "comes to the flesh"—to vexatious human experiences—and utterly expunges "incarnate error."

Today is the only time. Yesterday is but one's concept of it today. And tomorrow is only what we make of it today. Mrs. Eddy writes, "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings." ^{Science and Health, p. vii.} By the grace of God every hurt is healed.

Fear not, O land;
be glad and rejoice: for the
Lord will do great things.

Joel 2:21