Feeling Overwhelmed Being Replaced With Confidence in God’s Care

I am very grateful for Christian Science and for how it teaches us to look at everything in our lives through a spiritual lens rather than a material lens, and to recognize God as being at the helm of our lives, not chance, or fate, other people or circumstances. Recently I had some pretty significant upheaval in my life with my employment and also with some changes in our extended family that have seemed like a lot, initially, to navigate. When the work situation first came up, I’d actually felt very calm and trusting in God’s disposal of events, but when the family circumstances arose, it started to feel a bit overwhelming, I couldn’t see how it was all going to work out. In speaking with a practitioner from this church, she assured me that unfoldment is established in Mind – it’s not dependent on material circumstances. Just as the manna fell each day for the children of Israel in the wilderness, each day that spiritual manna will be there for us, with what we need to do for that day. She also pointed out that I seemed to be anticipating problems even before the problems actually arose and she said that I needed to expect things to go right and be a law unto myself in that regard. This really helped quiet my thought and has helped me to approach each day with a calm sense of the things that need to be done.

Whenever I find myself projecting my thought into the future with any sense of worry or fear, I’m much quicker about shutting that right down. Also, a hymn that the practitioner mentioned has helped a lot, especially the line: “Take from us now the strain and stress, and let our ordered lives confess the beauty of thy peace.” (I’ve been playing that line a lot on my ‘mental radio’ lately!) It’s been a couple weeks now and good progress is being made both on the work side and the situation with the family member. Each day, it’s been neat to see how the needs of that day have been met and how it has been enough for the day and its really increased my confidence, expecting that the same will be true for each coming day.

Recently, I was reading some letters that Herbert Eustace, an early Christian Science worker had written to his students. In one he said: “Any right step always carries with it the way to carry out the step. That does not mean that you do not demonstrate every step of the road because as a metaphysician you will of course have to, but it does mean that as Science and Health says, ‘God is never absent from the wisdom He bestows.’ In other words, the way of Mind is clearly discernible by the one looking to Mind.” This was also so reassuring and completely in line with what the practitioner shared. I wanted to express my gratitude for the light that Christian Science sheds on anything we are presented with, that helps us to move forward with confidence – looking to the divine mind for our answers.