When emerging from its shell, a baby bird seems frail indeed. But the fact is, a natural force is at work, providing strength and persistence for the emergence.

Sometimes we ourselves may feel as though we are confined in a shell, restricted by limited opportunities and finances, by poor health, a lack of companionship, or some other circumstance. And we may not feel strong enough to break through these limitations. But Christian Science reveals that God, divine Truth, is always at hand to empower us, to impel effective effort. As the confining shell of materialistic thinking begins to crack, we glimpse our real, spiritual existence with its infinite freedom and blessings.

Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health: "Mortals must emerge from this notion of material life as all-in-all. They must peck open their shells with Christian Science, and look outward and upward." ^{Science and Health, p. 552.}

Looking "outward and upward," we learn to replace the material sense of things with spiritual understanding. We begin to comprehend that God is far from being a vague something, remote and unknowable. We begin to see that He is the living, creative I am, or Principle, of all true being—infinite, perfect Mind, Spirit, Truth; all-embracing, ever-present Love, which never fails to bless!

As we grow in understanding, the spiritual fact becomes clearer: that the discord and evil the material senses depict are mesmeric errors, material illusions, a composite of false beliefs— no part of divine Truth's spiritual and perfect man, our true identity, or of Truth's universe.

We are not actually mortal personalities enclosed in material bodies. We are in reality the very sons and daughters of God, the ideas of infinite Spirit, in whom "we live, and move, and have our being." ^{Acts 17:28.} Our genuine, eternal substance is spiritual consciousness, emanating from divine Mind; hence our capacity to understand the divine. In reality we are Spirit's creation, included in God's orderly system of cause and effect. We are absolutely and irrevocably one in being with divine Principle, as its spiritual ideas.

In proportion as we accept this glorious sense of God and man, thought is lifted above discordant situations to God, Truth. In other words, we consciously bring the difficulties that confront us under the control of divine Truth and Love, wherein discord is unknown and harmony is the unchanging fact of being. Such a lifting up of thought to God is called "prayer" or "treatment" in Christian Science. It represents the activity in human consciousness of the healing Christ-power that Jesus so magnificently demonstrated for us.

In the face of such praying, the limiting concepts we may have been holding of ourselves and others start to crumble away. Thoughts of the past (with all their grieving and nostalgia), thoughts of the present (with all their stresses and pressures), thoughts of the future (with all their anxieties and reverie), are gradually sorted out with only the good retained as spiritually valid. A new sense of strength and dominion begins to well up in us. More and more we see ourselves as God knows us—as man, animated by divine Mind, motivated and inspired by all-conquering Love, dwelling in Love's undisturbable peace. We are ready, like the young bird, to sing and soar!

Emotional turmoil and temperamental weaknesses need never undermine our health. Mortal thought may lament, "But you don't know how unjustly I've been treated, how dreadful I feel!" Feelings of resentment, hurt, and self-pity, for example, may seem to close in around us like a shell. Pain may scream. But when God alone is acknowledged to be the substance and consciousness we truly reflect, then compassion pours in—the patience and forgiveness that melt away the hardness and release us mentally and physically. In this way we not only find our own peace but also reach other troubled hearts with the comforting touch of the Christ.

Only in the degree that we learn to love and forgive as Christ Jesus did will we gain freedom from finite, mortal sense with its personal strife, and find lasting joy. We need to know with certainty that the majesty and reality of our being cannot be hidden, deformed, or scuttled by false, mortal suggestions of conflict. The spiritual ideas of God all move together in one harmonious whole. This is divine fact.

If we think of ourselves as mortals with our own little private reserves of personal character, we will feel inadequate indeed when stiff challenges arise. Thought riveted on a personal sense of self fosters all kinds of doubts and anxiety. In short, self-centered thinking invites fear; God-centered thinking destroys it. In proportion as we see ourselves as spiritual, as God-constituted, false belief can no longer claim to limit our capacities. "I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me," ^{Phil. 4:13.} said the Apostle Paul. Dedicating our whole hearts to serving God, giving credence only to that which is derived from Him, we will feel not inadequacy, strain, or fear but the sustaining presence of God and His Christ, the glow of infinite, divine Love all around. We will begin to appreciate how great and good we all are in reality—as the Father's immortal, spiritual offspring, reflecting infinity.

What we call a material body is only a finite, mortal sense of our genuine infinite identity in Spirit's image. Actually the consciousness of divine reality constitutes our true embodiment or identity, and all is well in that consciousness. True identity includes no suffering, no cause of suffering, no remembrance of it, and no expectation or fear of it. To the degree that we stand on such truths, mortal thought will not be able to mesmerize us with suggestions of physical disorder. All of divine Mind's formations are maintained forever intact, perfect in structure, action, and condition.

More than a few times I have told myself, "Let the truth penetrate straight through the shell of material sense and the limiting, mesmeric pictures this false sense presents. Let it confirm the ever-present perfection and infinitude of Spirit, which is the divine fact even right where finite errors are claiming to be. Be humble enough to realize that God's knowing is all that constitutes your real identity as His reflection!" Mrs. Eddy's words "For God to know, is to be ..." ^{No and Yes, p. 16.} have resounded like a refrain in my thinking.

When I have maintained this position, problems have yielded. Health and income have been restored, friendships have been strengthened, and my days made more beautiful.

God is so good, and Life is so big! Even infinite! There is goodness, beauty, and interest everywhere. We just need to look for good and live it. We can realize that limitless Mind is always conscious of its own totality and excludes every erroneous belief that would challenge God's allness. Suggestions of discord cannot invade the heaven of our consciousness, the secret place of divine knowing, where God is understood to be the all of man's being.

Just as a mother bird cares for her young, so divine Love cares for you and me. God feeds us, instructs us, and teaches us how to attain the higher altitudes, where divine light, rest, and joy abound. God, our Father-Mother, will tell us whatever we need to know, show us whatever we need to do, and enable us to demonstrate progressively the true, unrestricted sense of being, the boundless freedom of our true selfhood.