It was the third day of our vacation, and the third day that I had been having coughing spells. I realized I was having the same conversation with my husband that I had been having for three days, complaining about how a friend had treated me. My friend had needed assistance with a project, but when I offered to help, she not only rejected my offer but later accepted someone else’s. That was hard to swallow! 

That day on vacation, however, I saw that I didn’t need to clear my throat—I needed to clear my thought. 

As a Christian Scientist, I am used to healing difficulties through prayer, which requires changing my thinking rather than changing something physical. As I began to pray, I saw that what needed healing was the belief that my way was the right one (self-righteousness) and that I had a right to complain (self-justification). Both states of thought result from belief in a mind and selfhood apart from God, who is the only source of good and the one, infinite Mind, governing all. 

Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “It is our ignorance of God, the divine Principle, which produces apparent discord, and the right understanding of Him restores harmony” (p. 390). There is nothing in that sentence about the need to change other people or their actions. I saw that my need was not to convince my friend of anything but to understand more about God and my relationship to Him.

Christ Jesus taught that we are each the loved child of God, cared for and provided for by Him. The prayer Jesus taught his followers says of God: “Thy kingdom come. Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10), and Science and Health gives the spiritual sense of those words: “Thy kingdom is come; Thou art ever-present. . . . Enable us to know,—as in heaven, so on earth,—God is omnipotent, supreme” (pp. 16–17). This assures us that God is right here with everyone, governing all. God never abandons His children any more than the sun can abandon its rays or the principle of mathematics can abandon numbers. He doesn’t leave His universe for us to complete or improve. He is ever present and always governing.

To consistently and certainly experience God’s care and guidance, we need to acknowledge that we are God’s children, subject only to His will, and that God’s will includes continuously unfolding good for us. Because God is universal Love, He blesses all. And because God is all-knowing Mind, His divine provision is superior to anything human reasoning or outlining could come up with. 

In Science and Health we read, “Will, as a quality of so-called mortal mind, is a wrong-doer; hence it should not be confounded with the term as applied to Mind or to one of God’s qualities” (p. 597). As I turned away from complaining and turned instead to God, I was able to let go of my own will—and of the belief that I even had a personal will—and listen for His direction. 

Praying with these truths, it didn’t take me long to see that I was actually not the right one to assist my friend with this project. The coughing spells soon eased and were gone within a day. My husband and I went on to enjoy the rest of our long-awaited vacation, which I had been missing out on. Complaining had been keeping me from seeing the good that was right at hand.

Later I was able to sincerely wish my friend well with her project. When it was completed, I rejoiced with her over its success. And I was quietly grateful for the lessons I had learned.  

When our plans don’t work out or don’t seem appreciated, it can be helpful to remember who we really are as God’s loved children and to listen for God’s direction. Then we will find the ideas we need to go forward, and that all are blessed.

Irene L. Alley
Skillman, New Jersey, US