By Kit 🏡♥️
The Psalmist assures us, “He that dwelleth in the secret place of the most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the Lord, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in him will I trust.” No discord can touch us,“ …. Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation;
(Ps. 91:1, 2, 9) This prayer places us in God’s hands, God’s home.
I have found that praying consistently for home has brought healing and harmony to our lives. A few years ago a friend was visiting for a couple of weeks. On a previous visit he had left early because he felt the atmosphere of the house made him ill. For this visit, we did special cleaning to accommodate his perceived needs, but I knew that our home was innately pure because the love, peace, joy and health expressed in it were qualities communicated from God. God establishes the idea of home and everyone that enters it is under God’s loving government.
On the first evening the guest told us that he was feeling ill. He is not a Christian Scientist and did not ask for us to pray for him so I continued my prayer for home. I knew that the prayerful work acknowledging the location of our home in God’s kingdom was done. In actuality, we always resided in God’s domain and we just acknowledged that truth. I knew that peace and health were an inalterable fact. Truth, God, cannot have even a tiny bit of inharmony in it. Our home was a healing place. In the morning our guest was perfectly well and continued to express health for the rest of the visit.
This was a lesson for me. I learned to consistently establish a spiritual concept of home in my thought. Mary Baker Eddy says in her work Miscellany (127:7-11), “One thing I have greatly desired, and again earnestly request, namely, that Christian Scientists, here and elsewhere, pray daily for themselves: not verbally, nor on bended knee, but mentally, meekly, and importunately.” I include home in these daily prayers for myself.
We are also told in I Thessalonians (5:17) “Pray without ceasing.” With this in mind, whenever my thought rests on my home, I see it in its spiritual light. This could be an affirmation of Peter’s statement, “For in him we live, and move, and have our being;”(Acts 17:28). Or to restate, home, a concept of God’s thought, is never outside God’s awareness thus harmony and joy are always present.
One of my recent prayers about home went like this. –In my home, an aspect of God’s house, all is in order. Every “tool in the kitchen”, every creative thought, is placed exactly where it needs to be for harmonious establishment of joy, activity and nutritious being (being fed by God ideas). Comfort and peace are present without searching for them. Health is the law here and Principle guards the gates. No hint that man could ever be anything less than the perfect expression of the perfect Mind is allowed in. This is God’s home of Her design and arrangement. Its use is secured in Soul’s domain.
Rest, regeneration, growth, grace and the understanding of pure spiritual being are the food served at the table here. Harmony and healing are the planks in the walls and this home is roofed over with love. Eternal life is expressed here. Here we dance the dance of joy in God’s magnificent spiritual architecture. Here we sing the songs of exuberant praise to Love. I am at home in God’s home. This is where my family lives no matter where they may physically be. This is where my guests enter.–
This is a healing prayer.
At another visit the guest mentioned above felt very ill with a cold. He had a fever and other symptoms and intended to get medicine in the morning. I knew that this suggestion of inharmony was no part of the sense of home that he had entered. I pondered how pillars of our dwelling, Life, Truth, Love, Soul, Spirit, Mind and Principle (synonyms for God) were actively holding us all in loving care. The guest was healthy in the morning.
We had invited an acquaintance, who knew nothing about Christian Science, to visit because she had expressed an interest in spirituality. When she arrived she told us that she was losing her hearing, and it was getting worse. She was quite fearful. Her voice came out in such low whisper that we could barely understand her. She expressed the need to go to a doctor for her hearing the next day. I said that we would certainly take her to whatever doctor she found. Then, because she had previously had a spiritual focus, I explained that we were Christian Scientist and how we rely on God for spiritual healing. I gave her some examples of healing from my families’ experience. I finished by saying that we would certainly follow her wish to take her to the doctor of her choice if that was what she needed. Nothing more was said.
I had established my spiritual sense of home before she arrived, and since I was not asked to pray for her, I went back to the indestructible fact that God’s creation is good, completely good, and this is where our home and everyone in it resides. Perfection is a law of Principle, God. That is all I could see. That is all I could bear witness to. I continued to hold to this truth about home and all of God’s children living in it. In the morning, our guest did not ask to go to the doctor. In a few days her voice was at a normal tone and she could hear the TV at the same volume as the rest of us. She didn’t mention her hearing again after the first day but we all could see that she had been healed.
When I picked up another guest at the airport she didn’t let me give her a welcome hug, saying that she had a cold and that she didn’t want to make me sick. She is not a Christian Scientist either so I again simply knew that any sense of sickness or discomfort could not enter our home. Before she arrived I had prayed to understand that we were all God’s perfect children living in the kingdom of heaven, another way to say God’s home. I kept my prayers on the spiritual understanding of where we live. By morning, she too was fine. Later, I was able to discuss with this friend the concept I had of our home and I shared some of the other healings with her. She said, “Oh yes, I was feeling sick when I arrived and was well by the next morning.”
This prayer extends beyond the physical boundaries of our house. Harmonious activity is continual, evidence of God’s presence. Mary Baker Eddy states, “The understanding, even in a degree, of the divine All-power destroys fear, and plants the feet in the true path, — the path which leads to the house built without hands “eternal in the heavens.” (SH 454:7–9) This is OUR house because it is God’s house, the home of Her children, us. It is a healing home.
Sometimes it is amazing, “Oh wow, God was acting here and look how perfectly things went together.” Often, though, home is the awareness of peace, joy, and the presence of Love. God is here.
