It was their first year in a new town. They'd noticed a woman at church who had no family to celebrate the season with. So they did what a lot of us would do—they invited her to a holiday dinner.

Margaret, the woman they had seen in church, was delighted to accept, but she wanted them to know that she felt no sadness at holiday times. Yes, her husband had passed on several years earlier. Her mother had passed on about five months after her husband, and the pet dog she and her husband had loved so much passed on less than two months later.

Through all this, Margaret felt strengthened by her understanding that there was an unbreakable continuity to their relationship. Death certainly did not have the final word about the spiritual basis of their lives. She knew that God was still taking care of her and them even though they were no longer together.

God is the one and only creator. What God creates is enduring and can't fail. All true relationships are established in God and are not dependent on material conditions. Jesus apparently knew this. His understanding of family was spiritual, not dependent on flesh and blood. He once said, "Whosoever shall do the will of God, the same is my brother, and my sister, and mother" (see Mark 3:31–35).

Relationships that have a spiritual basis transcend time. They are permanent and cannot be lost or destroyed by death. Mary Baker Eddy explains the continuity of everyone's true and permanent relationship this way in Science and Health: "The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history" (pp. 470–471).

Margaret, being a regular reader of the Bible and Science and Health, understood truths like these. When her husband passed on, she did not feel that anything had ended for him or for her. She was absolutely convinced that his life was going right on and that she could never lose his love and companionship, even though she could not see him. She knew that God had made both her and her husband to be His likeness. And she realized that all true life was and is spiritual and coexistent with God—not separate and temporary. That is why she could tell her new friends, "I would be happy to come, but I really don't have any feeling that I need to be with people for the holidays." She felt God's presence and did not believe that she was alone or bereft.

Before she reached that feeling, though, there were times when she thought, "Maybe I could have done better by him." She says, "We had been married thirty-five years, but I always thought of our marriage as being sort of average. Oh, we loved each other all right, but we had our ups and downs. I honestly think that this is what most people who grieve go through—this business of blaming yourself. You think, "If I had just done this or if I hadn't done that, maybe things would have been different."

But finally, she says, she realized that her husband was God's spiritual idea. "Even if I had wanted to hurt him, which I certainly didn't, I couldn't have done so, because the source of his life is God," she says. "Realizing that I didn't have the power to harm him, or anyone else, healed me. At last, I was free."

Her freedom was complete and still is. She stayed active in many ways, and soon became president of her 1600–unit housing cooperative. Later she served on the boards of three large national cooperative organizations. There was no looking back.

In a very real sense, you and I—all of us—are ideas, or individualized expressions, of that Love, which is God; not the mortals that we appear to be.

As an idea of Love, you are complete, lacking nothing. You have all the love, compassion, and harmony that God gives each of His ideas. With love in your heart, freedom from grief, regret, and self-condemnation is natural and cannot be taken away. Freedom is constant, and it knows no seasons. God is able to give it to us no matter where we are.

Whether you are feeling lonely during the holidays or at some other time, right now you can take a moment to accept God's comfort and love. It is with you, and it will give you peace.