After twenty-three years of marriage and the rearing of three fine children, my husband filed for divorce and moved out of our home. Although the next year and a half was a struggle, above all it was a time of significant spiritual growth.

I was grateful that I was able to see the situation as an opportunity to prove the truths I'd learned in Christian Science rather than as a problem. I was tempted, of course, to give in to feelings of self-pity and bitterness, and it required much prayer and some strenuous self-discipline to overcome them.

But soon I discovered something wonderful. I was becoming spiritually exhilarated! I was studying and applying the truth and growing, and I could feel the results—feel the joy of divine discovery! This didn't happen overnight; in fact, it took many months. But the glimpses of truth were so significant and were having such an impact on my life that I began to cherish the whole experience of discovering my true identity.

What was I learning? Man's oneness with God. And that the understanding of this is the very foundation of true happiness and well-being. The first chapter of Genesis states, "God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him." ^{Gen. 1:27.} Mrs. Eddy goes a step further when she says in Science and Health: "The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Matter is not that likeness. The likeness of Spirit cannot be so unlike Spirit."^{Science and Health, p. 475.} I saw that eternal oneness with God was the basic truth of my real, spiritual identity.

Each of us can accept this comforting fact and apply it in a practical way. God's likeness isn't united with God one day and cast off the next. For man to be separated from God is an impossibility. However alone one might feel, there is always the truth of man's inseparable relationship to the Father to serve as an anchor—to sustain and support and heal. Through prayer my concept of union was lifted out of the human realm to where it really belongs: the divine.

Perhaps the greatest challenge was the necessity of overcoming a feeling of not being needed anymore. Not only did my husband not need me, but two of the children had left for college, and the third would be leaving in a few months. They were beginning to spread their wings at just the wrong time. I would soon be living alone after years of running an active household.

Then I made another discovery in these words of Mrs. Eddy's: "As an active portion of one stupendous whole, goodness identifies man with universal good. Thus may each member of this church rise above the oft-repeated inquiry, What am I? to the scientific response: I am able to impart truth, health, and happiness, and this is my rock of salvation and my reason for existing." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 165.}

I realized that my purpose was to express or bear witness to the joy and dominion and goodness that were my heritage as God's idea. I needed to share these qualities actively with those around me, but first I needed to make them my own. Identifying with spiritual qualities and making them one's own involve an earnest effort to cherish and express them day by day, hour by hour. In my efforts to do this I found many opportunities to reach out to others with comfort and encouragement.

In the chapter "Marriage" in Science and Health we read: "Happiness is spiritual, born of Truth and Love. It is unselfish; therefore it cannot exist alone, but requires all mankind to share it." ^{Science and Health, p. 57.} And so it proved. My happiness, on a firmer foundation than ever before, simply had to be shared. I had found "my rock of salvation and my reason for existing."

It was necessary for me to deny the widely accepted fallacy that people are mortals whose completeness depends on their having a partner. The prophet told the Israelites in exile, "Thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name." ^{Isa. 54:5.} What a comforting thought! By companioning with the Father I was establishing a clearer sense of the wholeness of my own true identity.

I made a mental list of the qualities I considered important in a husband and worked daily to express them more fully myself. I saw I needed to bring them into my experience not by finding a husband who expressed them but by nourishing them in consciousness. I acknowledged that since God and His idea, man, are inseparable as divine cause and effect, God's qualities are constantly being reflected by man. I also knew that because this is the divine heritage of each one of us, we can demonstrate it.

Some of the spiritually based qualities that seemed important to me were gentleness, consideration, unselfishness, and humor. So I strove to be more consistent in expressing them to others. While I had never considered myself a critical person, I actively endeavored to be less abrasive in my appraisals of people, to be more charitable and kind. I discovered many ways in which I could improve. I could be a better listener; I could touch a hand or pat a shoulder when someone needed a small display of tender support.

Expressing consideration was a cinch! I remembered how many times a loving phone call had salvaged my day and knew a number of people who could use a boost. Sometimes I would run an errand for someone, another time simply smile at a stranger.

Unselfishness came more easily too. I had so much love to share, it could not be contained. On several occasions I was able to discuss a few of the lessons I was learning with someone who needed a bit of encouragement.

And humor—the delightful humor that enables us to see the ridiculous and laugh at ourselves. I learned not to take myself so seriously; and as I made a conscious effort to express humor, this removed a great sense of burden. All this helped me to realize that I needn't look beyond the borders of my own consciousness for expressions of these lovely qualities.

Then one morning I woke with the assurance that I was healed. I had been roused from sleep with the words of a loved hymn going through my mind: "The Christ is here, all dreams of error breaking...." ^{Christian Science Hymnal, No. 412.} And at that moment I knew the truth of this statement. The mists had cleared, and I was on the mountaintop!

From that time on I felt an exquisite spiritual dominion. My joy fairly bubbled over. A Bible passage from the Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly that week became illumined: "Behold, all they that were incensed against thee shall be ashamed and confounded: they shall be as nothing; and they that strive with thee shall perish. Thou shalt seek them, and shalt not find them, even them that contended with thee: they that war against thee shall be as nothing, and as a thing of nought." ^{Isa. 41:11, 12.} I understood that "they that were incensed against thee" and "they that war against thee" weren't persons but the false belief that man can be unhappy or unwanted. Suddenly I knew that in reality I wasn't a physical person, a mortal, who was divorced from another person. I recognized that all I had been confronted with was the temptation to believe that I was an unhappy and unwanted mortal. And I had the ability to reject that belief "as nothing, and as a thing of nought." I had the dominion of spiritual understanding.

The entire jarring experience of divorce faded into the mortal dream it actually was as I gained a wonderfully inspired view of man's wholeness and completeness here and now. Unhappiness and loneliness are not God-bestowed qualities, so they cannot attach themselves to God's idea, man. Whatever reality they may appear to have is only the result of one's belief in them, and the spiritually alert thought will not accept such a falsity.

Little had outwardly changed. I was still living alone and had found a job working with other Christian Scientists. But my life was overflowing with expressions of love and friendship. These were in greater abundance than I had ever known before.

Many months later I was married again, and I have witnessed in my new companionship the qualities that I cherished. I entered into the marriage not looking for someone to make me complete but with a deep feeling of spiritual wholeness and independence, which are strengthening elements in any union.

No one need feel he must find some special person to bring fulfillment and joy into his life. Each one already possesses all the qualities necessary for wholeness and satisfaction right within his own true consciousness, and this fact is demonstrable as one companions with the Father.