The Psalms employ beautiful teaching metaphors. They are meaningful when Christian Science shows the immediacy, relevancy, and healing power of the truth underlying the metaphorical message. Psalm 128 tells of the ideal family, wherein "thy children [are] like olive plants round about thy table." ^{Ps. 128:3;}

In Bible times a fully productive olive plant resulted from some seventeen or eighteen years of ceaseless cultivation and tending. One could know if the land were at peace or war by its olive orchards; if cared for, they were a sign of peace in the land; if neglected, of war! When the plants grew untended and wild, they yielded an inedible fruit. It is not unusual, then, for the Psalmist to use "olive plants" to describe children who are obedient to God's commandments as a result of their parents' spiritual training.

For some time a twentieth-century mother despaired for her son. Her prayers and those of Christian Science practitioners seemed to bring no surcease from the rebellion and disobedience he expressed. Poor motivation to be or do good resulted in bad grades in school and inharmony in the home.

One day the mother's thought was attracted to Psalm 128 and its arresting concept of children as "olive plants." She realized that if she were to see her son, as well as herself, as a spiritual child of God, she needed to meet the demands of persistent, cultivated, spiritual knowing of perfect God, perfect man—the fundamental basis of Christian Science healing. She was grateful for the provable revelation in Science that God, divine Spirit, Love, is the only creator, and His creation, including man, is entirely spiritual and loving; consequently loveless beliefs of rebellion, animality, self-will, are no part of God's child.

During his last two years in high school, the son was sent to a private school. The mother spent time each day praying—cultivating in her thought the spiritual idea of sonship. The "olive plant" metaphor helped her to be constant and consistent, patient and importunate, in her work. As her "olive plant" concept matured, the arid mortal beliefs of heredity and self-deception lessened their hold in her thought.

Moses experienced difficulty in leading the children of Israel out of bondage. God's message to him for Pharaoh "Let my son go, that he may serve me" ^{Ex. 4:23;} held a current relevance for the mother. She saw it as a command to let go of the blood-related, biological beliefs of motherhood—to see man, and therefore the real identity of the son, as totally originating in God, his Father-Mother, and complete in His exclusive care. Mrs. Eddy writes of the spiritual origin of man: "In Science man is the offspring of Spirit. The beautiful, good, and pure constitute his ancestry. His origin is not, like that of mortals, in brute instinct, nor does he pass through material conditions prior to reaching intelligence. Spirit is his primitive and ultimate source of being; God is his Father, and Life is the law of his being." ^{Science and Health, p. 63;} The mother pondered these statements and stayed with them until they became substantive and alive with emergent promise.

Another milestone of progress came from Paul's significant statement, "When it pleased God, who separated me from my mother's womb, and called me by his grace, to reveal his Son in me, that I might preach him among the heathen; immediately I conferred not with flesh and blood." ^{Gal. 1:15,16.} The mother saw that grace is God's loving benediction to each child. In Christ Jesus' healings, grace made truth lucid, and spiritual reality experiential. Grace—Spirit's tender, yet vibrant, renewing power—enables the individual to accept the spiritual facts of true being in contrast to the mortal sense of existence. The mother felt the dynamic impulsion of grace awakening truth within her consciousness, outlining the true concept of man's sonship with God. Self-deceiving pictures of friction, irritation, anger, animosity, lost their influence.

In Revelation 21:7 we read, "He that overcometh shall inherit all things; and I will be his God, and he shall be my son." This verse heralded the healing for the mother: human will ceased perpetuating a false concept of individuality. The image of a rebellious son was seen as an upside-down image whose outlining in consciousness would encumber consciousness with mental falsities. Real, that is, spiritual, consciousness is conscious only of the God-derived images transmitted by divine Mind through divine Science. When the false picture was eliminated from consciousness, the true idea of man's sonship with God became active in the mother's consciousness. She saw that Christ Jesus' words and works presented the provable basis of divine sonship for all mankind. As she prayed for the Mind of Christ to be in her, her thought responded to the true idea of sonship, which is the ever-present, incorporeal Christ, the divine image and likeness, forever asserting, perpetuating, and sustaining itself.

The manifestation of this spiritual awakening was a boy redeemed from selfishness. The headmaster at school wrote the mother at the end of her son's first year that the boy had had a complete transformation of thought. He was loving and gentle, and his last year saw high academic achievement. He went on to college and graduate school, where he received highest awards and honors.

The mother's "olive plant" ripened because, through patient, spiritual tending in her thought of the true idea, she was able to realize that God's child already is all right, complete, perfect, upright, free. The material sense of son had been proved illusory and untrue.

God is omnipresent Love, and the inherent instantaneity of Love's power is never withdrawn from any child, nor can any child withdraw from divine Love. The mother's experience with her son was one instance of God's love understood and demonstrated as coinciding with human need and giving evidence of the son's (and family's) native godliness. Love and its idea are eternally related in the divine oneness of cause and effect.