My dad and I were never very close when I was growing up. He had lived through the Great Depression. Not surprisingly, his thoughts often dwelled on lack—of money, of education, of employment. He was very focused on his work and was able to provide quite well for his family. Still, he seemed frustrated and dissatisfied. He could be impatient from time to time, and had a hair-trigger temper.

On top of that, Dad came from a generation of men who rarely expressed their affections openly. As a kid, I never recall him telling me he loved me or that he was proud of me. I eventually buried the desire for my dad’s approval, but I held onto my view of him as a frustrated, fear-filled man.

After my mom passed on, my dad remarried. His second marriage was not a happy one and his sense of frustration grew. Even so, he was loyal and supportive of his wife for the 20 years they were together.

When my stepmother passed away, my dad was distraught. My heart went out to him, and my wife and I began to visit him frequently to comfort him. I began to see him differently as he shared details about his life that I hadn’t known, and as I met his friends and acquaintances.

As I was getting this fuller picture of the kind of man my dad was, a more fundamental change was taking place inside me.

About nine years before, I had been introduced to Christian Science. And I had since been applying the liberating and healing truths I was finding in Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures.

One idea that meant a great deal to me was that my true, spiritual identity is the image and likeness of the one perfect God. Man—meaning all men, women, and children—is not made up of good and bad qualities. We, and all of God’s creation, are the very expression of God’s qualities—which can only be good.

I found further substantiation for this in the Bible: “And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness…. So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them.”

Understanding even a little bit about my spiritual identity changed my life. Science and Health states, “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God's own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.”

As I prayed and thought about these ideas and then applied them to my life, I experienced a variety of healings—proof to me that the concepts discussed in Science and Health were valid.

I came to realize more deeply that my—and everyone’s—real identity and individuality is the expression, the very reflection and image of God. My spiritual identity became more real to me than the human personality I’d thought I was. I glimpsed the fact that not one iota of man is material. As the perfect, complete image of God, I could only experience and express those perfect, health-filled, harmonious qualities of my Creator. Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health, “In Science, all being is eternal, spiritual, perfect, harmonious in every action. Let the perfect model be present in your thoughts instead of its demoralized opposite. This spiritualization of thought lets in the light, and brings the divine Mind, Life not death, into your consciousness.”

And that's exactly what happened. As I studied, and allowed my thought to be open to the truths expressed in the Bible and in Mrs. Eddy’s writings, the light did indeed begin to dawn in my consciousness. My mental model of myself and others improved. I began to see more clearly that since God is perfect, He could never cause inharmony or be in a state of inharmony. Therefore I, as God’s image and likeness, could never really experience these falsehoods either.

And if this is true for me, then it also had to be true for all of God’s other ideas, for all of Her children, for all of His creation.

I strove to see each person and every circumstance in this new light, regardless of what the outward appearance or behavior seemed to be. The results? My own joy and peace increased commensurately. But even more significantly, interactions with friends and acquaintances that seemed inharmonious frequently changed quickly to the picture of harmony as I focused instead on the “perfect man” that Jesus beheld.

As I spent some concentrated time with my dad, I began to see him in this new light. For the first time, I was able to appreciate the spiritual qualities he expressed and which others valued in him—fairness and justice, high moral standards, loyalty, sincere thoughtfulness for others.

More importantly, I recognized that the mental image I had been holding of him for all those decades as a frustrated, unhappy individual was simply not true about who he really was. Even though this seemed to be an accurate depiction of my dad at the time, God had never known him to be frustrated or fearful.

The fruits of these realizations were quite wonderful. I no longer saw evidence of fear or frustration in my dad. In fact, one evening, out of the blue, Dad told me how proud he was of my achievements and how much he loved me. And I responded in kind. It was a tearfully profound and joyous moment for both of us.

My dad passed away a few months later, and I am forever grateful that our relationship was completely healed.

The Holy Bible states, “And ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.” Over and over again, I have found that as we see ourselves and others in our true spiritual image and identity, our lives become freer. And the result of this new freedom? The joy of being able to bless and to be blessed—to express and to experience more fully God’s infinite, unconditional love for each of us in all our activities and relationships.

The perfect man:

Science and Health
476:32-5
407:22 In

King James Bible
Gen. 1:26, 27
John 8:32