There's something to be said for experience. In fact, a Chinese proverb says, "To know the road ahead, ask those who have traveled it." The two mothers who recorded this conversation about teaching spiritual values also happen to be grandmothers, so it may be a twice-traveled road they are reporting on.

Joanna: I've talked with so many young mothers who wonder about how to give their children spiritual values. The phrase itself seems a little awesome—as if the values were separate from who we are and what we do from day to day.

Emily: I know I felt sure God was the power in our home, and the daily rules we followed—the important ones—came through the Bible and Christ Jesus' life and teachings. I remember wanting to raise and care for our children the way Jesus loved children. I got that idea from a point Mrs. Eddy makes in Science and Health: "Jesus loved little children because of their freedom from wrong and their receptiveness of right." ^{Science and Health, p. 236.} Not that our children always behaved well—they were ordinary kids. But I knew that if I loved them from the standpoint of their natural goodness, their behavior and well-being would at least have a better pattern to follow. You remember the story of the schoolteacher who was given a class of underachievers but told that they were gifted? The teacher treated those children as being gifted, and the kids' performances soared. Well, similarly, to love children as free from wrong and receptive to right has an effect of releasing them to do what they spiritually are.

Joanna: To expect good is different from blindly loving merely out of emotional attachment or pride, or trying to figure out how to get them to behave or to feel secure. Remember the enormous amounts of advice and the warnings that were heaped on parents when our kids were young? But one thing did seem certain to me—I couldn't possibly have created such amazing beings. Therefore, I knew I ought to ask God—who was responsible as their creator—how to teach and love them best. From that standpoint, parenting felt natural and possible.

Emily: Did you specifically teach your kids about God?

Joanna: When they were little, I usually read a section of the Bible Lesson ^{The weekly Christian Science Bible Lesson is found in the Christian Science Quarterly and consists of citations from the King James Bible and from Science and Health.} with them before they went off to school, or at least we talked about something from the Bible. And we learned how to pray, together.

About spiritual values. I think children intuit whether or not parents honestly feel close to God. If God's presence seems important, then it naturally is part of what the kids think of as their family base. I know we didn't always live or talk or even think right up to the high standard of the Sermon on the Mount. We failed a lot of the time, but we certainly didn't pretend to our children to be something we weren't. And I'm sure it was a strong support for all of us to have a basic Christian standard to aim for.

Emily: At breakfast at our house, along with the cereal and eggs, I served up one section of the Bible Lesson. My husband, Larry, doesn't study Christian Science, but he agreed that the kids needed spiritual nutrition. This was such a regular procedure that when one of our sons was only two, he used to say the Lord's Prayer ^{See Matt. 6:9–13 .} this way: "Give us this day our daily breakfast."

Then for a while Larry had a business associate who stayed with us when he came to town. The first time Dan was there for breakfast, my husband said, "You're not going to read the lesson to Dan, are you?" and I answered, "If he's here for breakfast, he gets the lesson. It's part of our daily bread." And so Dan would sit and listen, and then he would say, "Thank you!" The kids didn't seem to think much about it as anything unusual, either.

Years later when there were no more kids living at home, Dan came back to visit. I served breakfast to him and Larry, and Dan said, "Where's the lesson?" I said we weren't still doing it at breakfast—the kids were gone. He said, "But I told my wife that's why I always liked to stay here."

Joanna: So often we assume it turns other people off to talk about religious subjects or to read the Bible Lesson with kids. But when it's an affectionate part of the family way of starting the day—not done superstitiously or as some kind of heavy duty—it's not hard to find acceptance. That doesn't mean there won't be any resistance. Lots of times one of our kids said "Aw, Mom, do we have to read this morning?"

The decisions and clutter of family life can seem overwhelming. A young mother recently said to me, "Life and metaphysics seemed easy right up until I had a baby, and responsibility. Then I really had to find out what I deeply trusted—and what God concretely meant to me. Living with children, you have to practice the truths. You have few illusions about the challenges."

Emily: Did you ever get questions from your friends about relying on God to meet all the needs of your family?

Joanna: Relatives and friends thought my study of Christian Science was all right for certain things but not for physical problems.

Emily: A recurring question I got was "But what would you do if one of your kids broke a leg?" This came up so often that I really had to pray and see what my conviction was. It occurred to me, finally, that a "What if?" question carried with it the assumption that God wouldn't be there under some circumstances. So my private, prayed-through answer became simply and definitely "God is!" When a theoretical "What if?" came up with friends or with the children, I knew that the overriding spiritual answer was the fact: God is! This meant to me that God—as divine Spirit, Life, Love—exists beyond doubt. He is in control, always, and there is no situation that could separate God and man.

Increasingly, I became certain that in caring for our children I would always have any answer I needed, when I needed it, because God is. Remember Mrs. Eddy's wonderful statement in Miscellaneous Writings: "God's fatherliness as Life, Truth, and Love, makes His sovereignty glorious." ^{Mis., p.234.} That's real Parent-power, which is always adequate to meet human needs.

You know, we did experience a perfect healing of a broken leg through relying on prayer—on God's all-power and presence. Mac was in second grade, and one Sunday afternoon he went sledding with his dad. When they left, Larry was carrying the sled; when they returned shortly he was carrying our son. Mac's leg was hanging down limply in an unnatural position. He had been trudging up the hill with the sled when a toboggan full of adults struck him. This was obviously a serious injury—from all appearances a bone was broken.

So, here it was, the thing I'd been asked for so long: What would you do about a broken leg? Bless my husband—he refused to allow fear to take over. Very quietly he said we needed to decide what was the proper thing to do. There had to be specific attention, right away.

Larry had seen the effectiveness of healing through Christian Science treatment with the children many times before, so he was already confident that it was reliable. Mac and Larry and I were in agreement about calling a Christian Science practitioner to pray with us.

At that very moment I felt so strongly that the of spiritual healing, the way Christ Jesus did it, was completely trustworthy. I wanted the best possible care for our child, whom I loved dearly, and I knew from our experiences that spiritual healing would provide it. There was no question that the spiritual law would meet the human need. I had already grasped some understanding that God is; and therefore I knew the oneness of God and His spiritual child was intact. There would have to be healing because we were under the law of God's allness.

I found these words of Mrs. Eddy: "The point for each one to decide is, whether it is mortal mind or immortal Mind that is causative." ^{Science and Health, p. 195.} If I decided God, immortal Mind, is causative, then the proper procedure was to pray to understand without reservation that Mind, God, was the only cause to this particular situation. Such prayer eliminates the belief that accident or fear could be the truth in God's kingdom.

I had already long ago chosen to love this child as Christ Jesus loved God's offspring—free from wrong or accident, expressing only what is right, and in the pure status of the son of God. In the most radical, spiritual sense, only God causes action, and in divine action there is only harmony.

The effect of humble trust, conscious affirmation, and spiritual understanding in Christian Science is to bring human thought and experience into conformity with the divine law. So the line from the Lord's Prayer "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" ^{Matt. 6:10.} is made practical. It's not that we arrange things on earth, but that the divine order of heaven takes precedence over the earthly appearance. In this coincidence of the human and the divine, the Christ, or "God with us," cares for the human need.

That's the substance of the spiritual reasoning and prayer I was immersed in while Larry made Mac comfortable in his own bed and propped his leg on a pillow. Then Mac and I talked together about God's absolute love and care for him. We made a strong point of being grateful for the spiritual nature of man as God's image.

By evening the pain had disappeared. Although Mac was in bed for two weeks before he went back to school, there was no return of the pain. I especially appreciated this idea from Science and Health: "Step by step will those who trust Him find that 'God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble.'" ^{Science and Health, p. 444.} Our trust was rewarded even to knowing intuitively how to give proper nursing care. It was evident that the healing was going on daily. Soon it was complete, and Mac was able to walk freely and normally. Within a month he was taking a swimming class at the local Y.M.C.A. Later he did a lot of figure skating, and he played basketball in high school and college.

Joanna: That's a reassuring healing. It seems to me it wasn't a situation either of compromise or of bravado. It was clearly a spiritually intuitive decision, and it was consistent with your daily reliance on divine law and the understanding of man as spiritual.

Emily: This was a special time of closeness and support among all three children and parents. But even more important, we all felt especially our closeness to God. When specific healing is going on, we're careful to keep thought pure and right. So, on the physical level, the bone was knitting, while in a mental and spiritual way we were drawing near to God and to each other.

I still remember the certainty I felt of God's healing presence, revealed by the Christ. It was wonderful to witness—through treatment in Christian Science—the painless, complete healing of something I had so often questioned.

The children were used to praying for each other and for me too. If one of them ever was ill, I'd say, "We need help. We all need to pray." The kids tell me today that it really was important to them to be asked to pray. It helped them show love for each other in a very special way. There was never an issue of whose prayer worked—it was certain that if we never an issue of whose prayer worked—it was certain that if we turn things over to God in the way Christ Jesus did, trusting God's power, things that need to change will change. And in this memorable experience, that is what happened.