Connections | Sharing Spiritual Ideas that heal

Hello friends and Pam’s students! I have volunteered and am honored to help with this “blam”. We will hear from Pam regularly and she would like to hear from us.  I think we would also like to hear from each other!

So – let’s share our healings, our news and our gratitude.  Let’s share our insights, stories and anecdotes.   We can also share our questions and introduce topics for discussion!  We may not feel that we are “writers”, but we all share a common bond of love and inspiration.  We also share a very special way of looking at life!

We are quite privileged to have wonderful resources to draw on for wisdom and inspiration.  I always enjoy the periodicals and would like to start the ball rolling by sharing a quote from  the October 1 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.  I like to “bookmark” articles which I find especially meaningful and I also enjoy the articles directed to teens.

This is from the article to teens entitled “How Does a Christian Science Healing Happen?” by Jenny Sawyer:

As we pray about a problem, it’s easy to think that we’re making something happen, or causing God to do something for us. But that’s not what prayer does. What prayer does is help us wake up to what’s already true, what’s already in place. It clears away the doubt and fear so we can see that everything God made is just as intact as it’s always been. When you see this clearly, it’s an “aha” moment—and an adjustment in your thoughts and life inevitably follows.

We look forward to hearing from you!

Jennifer 🌸

Thanks, Kit Kurtz, for posting this lovely piece!

We have a beautiful dining table. When the two leaves are added it seats eight people, ten if you double up on the ends. My mother and I would search for friends and acquaintances that needed a place to share gratitude and Thanksgiving dinner. We were usually able to fill the table.

My mother had passed on earlier in the year so I was on my own to carry on our tradition. I had invited people at church and although I hadn’t heard back from everyone it looked like a full table again this year.

The weekend before Thanksgiving I was not feeling well, struggling with a runny nose and other cold symptoms. On Sunday I really understood the service to be God’s and I was able to perform my job as Second Reader perfectly. But after church I seemed to be sneezy again. I tried to put aside worry about my ability to read Thanksgiving and make a 1pm dinner after church for everyone. I love the idea of worry being ingratitude in advance and I CERTAINLY did not want to be ungrateful AT THANKSGIVING!

Tuesday morning I went swimming in the ocean even though I still wasn’t feeling well. As I prayed and swam I was reminded that a Christian Science Teacher had once told my mother that a cold is a sense of feeling unloved. While I didn’t want to be formulaic about my prayers I decided to examine the idea that perhaps I was feeling unloved. I discovered that with the holiday coming up I was thinking a lot about my mother and missing her. Also, my daughter had just left after spending a beautiful visit with us and I was missing her too. A hymn popped into my thought that has the line “Come ye disconsolate where air ye languish.” At that moment I felt quite disconsolate. But the hymn is about coming to God’s everpresent love—a stanza ends with the line, “Earth has no sorrow that Love cannot cure.”

I also knew that feeling sad or unloved was not my nature. I know that all love comes from Mother /Father God and is expressed by her creation, man, but man is not the source. My mother and my daughter certainly expressed love that I felt and gave back but that love was always, is always from God. As I continued to pray, a beautiful sense of everpresent Love came over me. I held to that feeling of infinite Love’s tangible presence all day and also knew that that love was there and known by everyone wherever they were in the world. By the end of the day all symptoms of a cold had vanished.

Also, just after my beautiful prayerful swim, my son and I were invited to an evening Thanksgiving celebration. I accepted. All the people that I had invited to our dinner had accepted the invitation by Wednesday evening. I felt so very loved by God in the expression of the nineteen people at dinner. If you ask God for love you get abundance. I had a wonderful two Thanksgiving dinners surrounded by Love. And yes there was just enough turkey.

Thanks Kathie, for your inspiration.

Continuing in prayer regarding ongoing fires, was grateful for new inspiration that came from studying the Lesson today.

It began in Section 3, citation 12: “It should be thoroughly understood that all men have one Mind, one God and Father, one Life, Truth, and Love.” Today I saw more clearly that we don’t all have separate lives, some fortunate, and others not so much. Life is All, is good, is omnipresence. We all live the same Life filled up full with abundant blessings from our Father-Mother Love. And this Life is one of infinite, uninterrupted harmony, provision, peace, lovingkindness, generosity, comfort, strength, wisdom, purity, wisdom, freedom, truth, inspiration, trust and joy. Never for an instant can anyone ever be separated from any element of God’s goodness and loving care. No one can lose their home, their employment, family or friends, for these all harmoniously flourish in His kingdom where we all forever safely dwell, permanently employed and companioned by divine Life, Truth and Love.

In Section 4, citation 10, Jesus told the nobleman, whose son was near death, “Go thy way; thy son liveth. And the man believed the word that Jesus had spoken unto him, and he went (H)is way.” Here I saw not only “thy son liveth”, but also further clarification that “thy home liveth (survives/continues), thy job/purpose liveth, thy abundant provision liveth, thy friends and family liveth”……… even right now where the carnal mind may be declaring otherwise. It’s a liar, and as unsettling and scary as its reports may sometimes seem, they are never true, never valid and never touch, determine or identify our one and only, true, spiritual being. God/Good, is our only Life. He alone gives us our day, and it couldn’t be better. And the nobleman accepted, and believed this truth despite the appearance of things, and before he saw tangible evidence of it.

In citation 15, we are told that: “God, who commanded the light to shine out of darkness, hath shined in our hearts…” Our atmosphere may literally appear dark and foreboding, and our minds may temporarily appear to express that darkness. But in reality, right now where we are, the light of Christ, Truth, is shining brightly at God’s command. We are all that light, and dwell in that light, so our experience can only express that light. There is no other presence, power or activity that can prevent God from shining throughout His kingdom. This light opens our eyes and ears and hearts to recognize the forever omniness of infinite Love, and our forever oneness with Her.

In Section 2, citation 8, it says: “…divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; …joy cannot be turned into sorrow…” I see these as promises from God, so it must also be true that Love’s idea cannot be deprived of his comfort from, and trust in, Love’s allness. The reality of “what is” forever outshines the lies of “what ifs” or “what appears to be”. Never has anyone ever been deprived of this light and joy “For in Him we live, and move, and have our being.”

Thought by thought, His legions of angels are communicating all we need to know to continue to go His way with a clear sense of Truth, and a calm trust in God’s ability to always meet every human need. I pray to know that every one of Love’s precious children can feel the calm and comfort of this Christly love embracing them, permeating every thought and action. And that this understanding, and conviction, of Love’s allness brings peace to all.

(Thanks, Duffy! So very needed now.)

Love is the motive
Love is existence
Love is what we do, why we do, how we do
LOVE IS IT

Love is caring, sharing, repairing
Love is working ceaselessly
Love is my angel manifestation of God
Love is my spiritual unity with God, my inseparability from God

Love is the reason
Love is absolute
Love is guaranteed
Love is Being

Love is all encompassing
Love is infinite, abundant
Love is huge
Love is Oneness

Love everyone, everywhere, every moment
Love always
Love completely
Love endlessly

Love is why God made us
Love is the purpose
Love is pure
Love is beauty in all things

Love is a shield
Love protects
Love supplies
Love leads and guides

Thanks for all of your good work for the Association meeting. I think Ihad a healing that I would like to report. I can’t say that there was some specific thought that brought this about but being tuned in all day had the effect. I had for several days a stolen and painful foot which made it difficult to walk. On Sunday I realized that the swelling and discomfort had gone. I am very grateful for this and many other healings.
Thanks again Frank

Thanks to Jan Gold-Dempsey for this post!

We adopted a feral kitten several months ago, and the time for her to start exploring the world outside the house had begun. It was an early Friday evening, and from the window I could watch her enjoying running and hiding in the plants. I decided to go out to enjoy the evening and watch her.

There was a section of old and previously used section of decking, and it was upside down resting on concrete blocks. I thought I had selected a spot where there were no nails, but when I had sat down, I soon realized that I had sat down on some. Because the deck was lower to the ground, I had sat down hard, and getting up off of them required some work. I was startled, frightened and in considerable pain, and went to find my husband for some help. There were four punctures, going front to back between my legs where I sat down.

Although I was holding to the truths I was very familiar with, it was difficult to get past the pain, and the fear. The Lesson that week talked about ‘darkness and light,” and I was knowing that all of me was light, that nothing dark could be overtaking my thought, or harming me. Thoughts of the darkness inside of this body, and any harm or injury done in the darkness inside, did persist in my though, and I did call a practitioner for help.

My husband read to me from the Lesson, and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, and I did eventually fall asleep for a while. Pain and discomfort woke me up around 3:00 am, and I read an email that my practitioner sent which talked again about the ‘darkness and the light’ which were in the Lesson. I WAS light!

I experienced relief and comfort and again went to sleep. The next day, a Saturday, I was feeling considerably much better. Knowing that I am now and forever a child of God, a perfect reflection of God’s qualities, none of which include worry, fear, pain, I knew that nothing in the picture of me could be anything less that the reflection of perfect harmony.

It was a joyful day of cooking (I love to cook) for the fellowship taking place the next day at church. I knew my perfection and I also knew healing was in fact taking place, but there was something still nagging at my thought. I was questioning whether these internal (in the dark) injuries could in fact be healed. I was questioning what damage could have taken place by these four nails? There was some fear – that fear that the unseen could be cared for and healed.

After church, the enjoyment of the fellowship gathering included talking with the Sunday School children and the rest of the congregation. When I left, I still had a nagging feeling that there was yet something more I needed to understand; something still incomplete in my thought and felt it had to do with doubts that these unseen injuries could really be healed.

I got in my car to leave, I turned to God and simply asked, “Father, what more do I need to know right now?” Well the answer came loud and clear – I was being impressed with the enormity of the injuries! I was being impressed with the impressions of those four nails! I was letting fear impress me, letting what I thought was a ‘humanly scary’ injury give me reason to doubt that healing could take place.

Soon I realized what the real healing was – not recovering from four three inch nails puncturing me, but the knowing that with God ALL things are possible, seen or unseen. With this realization, a floating type of feeling came over me, and I knew with absolute clarity, that I was completely healed. That there could be nothing lingering inside of me to be corrected. That my spirituality is now, and has forever been, perfectly intact, unharmed, and unimpressed. From that moment forward, there was never any indication of an injury.

I am forever grateful for the daily unfolding of God’s greatness, our daily bread, and for this understanding from Mary Baker Eddy.

To all members and guests of the DeBolt association,

What a heavenly day this past Saturday was! Thank you so much for your warm, warm, warm welcome. I felt so at home with you all!

I will look forward to “seeing you” on the blam (why do you call it that?).

Love,
Jo (Duffy’s sister)