Fearlessly trusting each other’s development to God
/Question 2: Share a testimony other than physical healing in which reading one or more of Skip’s articles had played an important part in your own spiritual study and prayer and final demonstration.
Sometimes the temptation to feel dissatisfied with my failure to meet the desires of my wife has tempted me to feel disheartened. This idea from “What can you do about marriage?” (Sentinel, June 9, 1986) has been very helpful: “From divine Spirit, Soul, flows out a sense of fulfillment, of love and spiritual joy, that is unmatched. We learn that this can light up even apparently bleak circumstances. Soul, not favorable circumstances, is what we most need—and also what we always have.”
Knowing that I am not the source of fulfilment for my wife, and vice versa, is a deeply liberating understanding of the way life works. It has prevented heavy feelings from progressing, and led me to seek more deeply for God as the true source of fulfilment. In tangible ways, this understanding has brought both of us deeper enjoyment in being married.
My wife and I also noticed a tendency to correct each other. This correction was usually about mundane, day-to-day things, and often came in the form of metaphysical reasoning. As we both prayed, we realised that we could avoid these tense and unnecessary conversations by fearlessly trusting each other’s development to God. The idea that there really is only one Mind is so persistently denied by mortal minds—always insisting that there are, of course, many minds. As I’ve stuck with seeing there is just one Mind, trust and love again defines the majority of our conversations and interactions.
Another lesson from this experience has been the importance of not “talking metaphysics,” but inwardly demanding ourselves to see it and be it. This keeps us clear from the human opinions that would try to assert themselves.