A number of years ago, I was laid off from a job that I really enjoyed and thought I was pretty good at. It wasn't easy for me, either financially or emotionally. I couldn't understand why I was laid off. I felt helpless.

I prayed to God for help. And pretty soon, several job opportunities came about. I was able to use my existing skills, as well as develop some new skills. One day I might be doing some sort of manual labor and the next I would be coaching executives on communication. It became a real adventure.

Then the problems started to hit. Even though I had plenty of work, it just wasn't bringing in enough money to make ends meet. We had a hard time paying our bills, particularly education loans for our daughters who were in college. My wife and I had to dig into our retirement funds—we had no more savings. My wife had to increase her work hours to pretty much full time, and that had an impact on child-rearing.

Worst of all was the flare-up of a not-so-great character trait. I had always been pretty independent and fairly confident. But apparently, the fact that I was now working independently fed my ego. I knew from studying the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy that my actual nature was Godlike. God is the one Ego, and He's neither overconfident nor insecure. As God's very likeness, we reflect this divine Ego.

But I wasn't paying much attention to these ideas, and certainly wasn't cultivating them. One of the most insidious things about inflated ego is that the person who has a problem with it often doesn't see it. That's what happened to me. But my wife and daughters saw it, and they told me about it.

Over and over I would ask them, "What's wrong?" And they would say, "You're being stubborn, you're not listening to other people's advice. You don't care about how we feel." They felt just the way I did when I was laid off—helpless.

A pattern evolved: flare-up, denial, then argument. Sometimes I would make them cry, and I hated causing the people that I loved the most to cry. My family wanted me to get help, but I thought they had the problem.

We grew farther and farther apart. It was strange and painful because we had always been very close. I was losing my family, and when I reached that point, I decided I really had to get some help. So I called a Christian Science practitioner to help me to pray for a solution.

This practitioner gave me "tough love," from a spiritual standpoint. She was honest. In the same way that Jesus saw the spiritual perfection of those who came to him for healing, this practitioner understood my God-given nature. She encouraged me to identify and put off anything I found in my conduct that wasn't true for God's good creation. It was kind of like peeling off layers of undesirable character traits so that my true spiritual identity could come to light.

The practitioner pointed me to a passage in Mary Baker Eddy's Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896 called "Pond and Purpose." It's about how people come face to face with the dark elements in their thoughts, and are led to put them off through the power of God. How things such as arrogance and materialism and selfishness ultimately have to give way to our better, spiritual nature. As St. Paul said, we "put off the old man" and "put on the new man."

That's what was happening to me. I was coming face to face with various forms of materialism—specifically egotism—that I had let control me. I'm not prone to tears, but when I realized what had happened to me and what I was doing to my family, I broke down. I was one miserable human being. I literally got on my knees and submitted myself totally to God's will—asked Him to help me build myself back up. And with the help of the practitioner and my family, we did just that.

First, I apologized to my family, and thanked them for sticking with me. And in retrospect, I wouldn't have blamed my wife if she had run me off. Later she told me that she knew what was there before in my character, and she knew it was still there, deep down, and was worth the effort of bringing it back to the surface. All along, we'd all loved each other very deeply, though it had been hidden for some time.

The next step in the healing process was to acknowledge and reclaim my God-given character traits, the ones that mirror His nature. The practitioner and I discussed how, in a sense, God was my true employer. Because He loves us, He gives us the kinds of assignments that carry out His will, and the ability to do what He wants us to do. I began to feel a lot more secure in my identity, knowing that God shaped it. That He made me to be loving, caring, mindful of others' needs.

This uncovering of who I really was transformed me into a different person. It also helped me see how to employ these qualities in the most productive ways. I applied for, and was given, a job that was perfectly suited to my skills, including the new ones that had grown in me. This work enables me to help others find their own spiritual identity.

I got my family back—something incredibly important to me—and we are a lot stronger now. It took a while, because I had to prove myself to each of them by actually living those Godlike qualities. I still have some things to work out, but I've come a long way. I've still got to work at acknowledging that any good in me doesn't come from me, but straight from God.

I'm grateful beyond words that my family, and a caring Christian Science practitioner, stuck with me.

Don Feldheim
Marshfield, Massachusetts

This account first aired on Sentinel Radio.