MILLIONS OF WOMEN , as well as the medical community, were thrown into turmoil recently when the largest study to date on hormone-replacement therapy (HRT) found that such treatment increased health risks for some women. The cover of TIME magazine posed a difficult question for the "40 percent of all women in the US" who turn to HRT in their menopausal years. In bold letters and colors the cover reads: "Hormone-replacement therapy is riskier than advertised. What's a woman to do?"

As a woman, my heart is right next to those struggling with both the symptoms and treatment of menopause. Yet I know that the answer to the question "What's a woman to do?" doesn't have to be a risky one. It can be a spiritual one.

I remember when I faced the difficulties of menopause. When I was in my early 50s, my father, whom I was extremely close to, died, My husband and I were finding that our nest seemed very empty when our youngest child went away to college. My first gray hairs were appearing, along with some physical and emotional discomfort—hot flashes and mood swings. I cried easily and a lot. Suddenly it seemed as if everything around me was changing—my life, my family, my body. I was dealing with what my generation referred to as "the change of life."

One afternoon when I was particularly weepy, I realized that the discomforts of menopause had to be addressed directly and prayerfully. Praying about it is like taking the question "What's a woman to do" to God. Prayer opens your thoughts and hearts to the spiritual insights and answers that help you exchange a material view of life for a more spiritual one. This spiritual view affects your lives in both profound and practical ways.

How did prayer change my viewpoint about the changes occurring in my body and in my life? How can quiet communion with divine Mind change anyone's view of life? The best way for me to explain this is to offer the mental insight that came to me.

As I prayed, I remembered something from Science and Health, which has taught me the basics of spiritual prayer and healing. In this book, the author used symbols from geometry to illustrate the difference between a physical and spiritual view of life. She explained: "The real Life, or Mind, and its opposite, the so-called material life and mind, are figured by two geometrical symbols, a circle or sphere and a straight line. The circle represents the infinite without beginning or end; the straight line represents the finite, which has both beginning and end" (p.282).

With this illustration I imagined myself putting a pencil in the middle of a straight line and following it down to the end of the line. I realized that if I thought in terms of "middle age," with life poised in the middle of that straight line, then I could be headed down the line toward the end—the end of youth, vitality, good health, etc. (And isn't that what women facing menopause have been conditioned to believe is happening to them?) I then realized that if I put my pencil anywhere on the circle and continued to trace around it, my pencil could continue tracing the circle indefinitely. The circle, representing infinite Life, would go on eternally without beginning or end.

It was so mentally invigorating to realize that this illustrated the eternal view of God as Life, which includes no loss or change. Divine Life can never lose its energy, its animation. it can never lose its divine liveliness and loveliness. I realized that these spiritual facts are also true of God as divine Mind, the source and stability of the universe. The intelligence of Mind, which keeps the earth turning on its axis and the planets circling in their orbits, has an equilibrium that never wavers, never swings from one extreme to the other.

As I prayed with these ideas, I understood better that a spiritual unity with our creator holds us each in the joy and health of eternal Life. The dictionary defines eternal as "an abiding fellowship with God." As you live in fellowship with God, relying on Mind for guidance and inspiration; as you trust Principle to bring honesty and integrity to your dealings with others; as you turn to Love to help us be more thoughtful and unselfish, you are "abiding" in and with His unchanging nature and balanced.

The Scriptures say that God created male and female and that "God blessed them." In "abiding fellowship" with God, an individual's maleness or femaleness is not so much physiological—a straight line moving toward an end—as it is eternal—more like a circle, with continuity of progress, joy, and health.

Science and Health puts it this way: "Time-tables of birth and death are so many conspiracies against manhood and womanhood" (p. 246); and "Men and women of riper years and larger lessons ought to ripen into health and immortality, instead of lapsing into darkness or gloom" (p. 248).

What was the result of my prayer? First, there was physical and mental relief. After that afternoon in quiet moments of communion with God, I never again had another mood swing or moment of emotional distress. The weepiness was over and done. The hot flashes? I don't honestly remember how quickly they ended, but I do remember that they did end not long after my prayer. In the meantime they so diminished in frequency and intensity as to be a non-issue. And about that empty nest? My husband and I realized some benefits: We no longer had to be home every weekend to make sure the weekly high-school party did not take place in our home. Our marriage was like new again—we bought tickets to the New York Philharmonic and spent delightful weekends enjoying and exploring New York City. Finally, much to my surprise and delight, my career took a wonderful new turn that led to speaking engagements around the United States and other parts of the world.

As we women open our hearts to a spiritual view of life, we can feel God's energy, which replaces symptoms of declining health and vigor; we can feel renewed by a power that does away with worry about age and fading beauty; and we can continue to be involved with life and progress. We can be so busy "doing" that we will not have time to ask, "What's a woman to do?"