Have you ever been so angry or hurt that you've said or done something that you later wished you hadn't? I certainly have, and I've sometimes thought about how nice it would be if you could just clear away those moments and start fresh in much the same way a videotape is erased. Obviously, life doesn't work that way, but doesn't mean we're condemned to replaying mentally those unhappy events over and over again—or to making the same mistake repeatedly. Understanding even a little about the nature of our Father-Mother God, divine Life, and putting that understanding into practice, can completely eradicate distress and even negative ramifications of unhappy events.

What a freeing thought! But is it really possible? These ugly experiences can seem so concrete, so real. How can we get rid of them without suffering some sort of memory loss or without repressing mental images of a given incident? We can do it by knowing something of what is real and what is not.

We tend to trust things that we can see with our eyes and feel with our fingers. But these things can be destroyed; material objects don't last forever. There is something that does, however, and that's God. God, Spirit, being eternal, is true reality and substance. God's Spirit, idea, man, is completely at one with Him. This is our true selfhood. We actually live in God, so we can never really be touched by anything that He didn't make. Anything that isn't purely good doesn't come from God who is infinite good; and if it doesn't come from God, the one creator, it isn't real. Therefore we are not obligated to suffer from it!

Clearly, this spiritual view of man isn't supported by the material senses, but through spiritual sense we can understand that it is the only accurate view. And spiritual truths can be demonstrated! Becoming more aware of man's harmonious, spiritual existence as the child of God helps us sift through our thoughts and experiences and identify their source. If we think we're encountering anything less than God-given good, we can deny it access into our lives, and even into our memories.

Once while my husband was far from home on a business trip, we had several disagreements over the telephone. Discussing the issue in an attempt to resolve our differences actually intensified the conflict, and we both felt very unhappy. After yet another disturbing conversation, I called a friend of mine in tears. He is a Christian Science practitioner, and I asked him to pray for me.

I felt so remorseful about some of the things that I had said to my husband. I was afraid that I might have done irreparable damage to my marriage, even if only in a small degree. We were newly married, and I didn't want anything to mar our relationship. My friend told me, "You never said it; he never heard it," and he agreed to pray for me. This might sound strange since I had just hung up the phone from speaking with my husband, and what I had said was not very nice, and I was sure he had heard my words! But the point was that discord of any kind is never truly real and therefore it has never taken place.

It's not God's man who acts in an unloving manner, but a mortal, the suppositional opposite of spiritual man. Suppositional is the key word—there really aren't two types of man, one spiritual and one material. And we're not spiritual just in some distant reality, trying to work out of materiality. We are purely spiritual. What we need to do, though, is to shift our concept of man—exchange the belief in man as a fallible, unloving mortal for a better understanding of our pure spiritual identity—and this change in thought will proportionally bless our experience.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discover and Founder of Christian Science, writes in Science and Health: "The great spiritual fact must be brought out that man is, not shall be, perfect and immortal.... The evidence of man's immortality will become more apparent, as material beliefs are given up and the immortal facts of being are admitted" (p. 428). This was my opportunity to witness more of man's immortality and perfection—in myself and in my husband.

I thought about God, the creator of all, and His spiritual idea, man, who is made according to the divine standard of perfection. It is God who defines man's nature, establishing it as loving, good, and pure. The man God made and maintains—and my husband and I are both that man—really can't participate in or be an onlooker to any ungodlike activity, such as an argument. The good that we experience and that we express comes from God, and this is what is lasting. I knew that understanding my real identity better would improve the way I behaved and the experiences I had. We're not stuck with a flawed personality. Man is the flawless idea of God.

Christ Jesus taught us, "Judge not, and ye shall not be judged: condemn not, and ye shall not be condemned: forgive, and ye shall be forgiven" (Luke 6:37). I've found that it's a lot easier to forgive myself and others when forgiveness is based on the inherent innocence of God's creation. My friend's statement, "You never said it; he never heard it," was starting to make a bit more sense and seem more practical and less abstract to me.

When my husband telephoned early the following morning, I apologized for what I had said. His immediate reply was "I never heard it." We went on to have one of the sweetest conversations we'd ever had, and there was no trace of any conflict.

God really does protect the good that we hold dear. Mistakes or problems in the past—recent or long ago—have no hold on us! We can redeem them and experience healing. Today each of us can begin to understand more of God and His spiritual idea, man, and the ever-present good that is ours.