Excerpts from a Journal

June 30, 2010 

Yesterday I spent several hours with a retired friend who broke down in tears and confided that she felt hopeless and despairing, even outlining a concrete suicide plan. I asked if she wanted me to pray for her. Though she knew little about Christian Science and was an unbeliever, she said yes. I prayed with the truth that God was guarding and guiding her every thought and action, and that “Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need” (S&H 494:10–11). The readings at church tonight were on helping our fellows in need—exactly along the lines I had been working. It was further affirmation that all was, and would be, well.

(Follow-up: I continued praying for my friend. A short time later I was led to introduce her to someone who offered her an intensive volunteer job that fit her background beautifully and that she has stayed with to this day. She has never again mentioned feeling despairing.)

August 16, 2010

A homeless woman came into the Reading Room in a very upset state, talking loudly to herself. I prayed knowing that divine Mind governed her every thought and action. She immediately calmed down and spent some quiet time in the study room. When she left she was smiling and in her right mind.

January 14, 2011

Yesterday I received news that my mother, now in her tenth decade, had become very ill and confused and had been admitted to a hospital for the first time since giving birth to my youngest sister almost 50 years ago. I prayed to know that she was in God’s loving care. “The divine Mind that made man maintains His own image and likeness… . All that really exists is the divine Mind and its idea, and in this Mind the entire being is found harmonious and eternal” (S&H 151:23–24, 26–28).

While praying for her this morning, I felt on a very deep level her inseparability from God. These thoughts came to me: “Thank You for Your infinite Love and care that erases all fear and lifts my mother and all of us up to the realm of the real. The confusions, doubts, and fears of the human mind fall away in the peace of the divine Mind, through which we are given the consciousness of our oneness with You, God, and our interrelatedness with each other through You. Thank You for this gift of knowing, seeing, being with You and with my mother in the eternal now, of being lifted up.”

When I called my mother at the hospital shortly afterwards, the doctor examining her got on the phone and asked me, “Why is she here? All her tests are normal and she is very lucid.” She was discharged a few hours later. That same night she was backstage at a rock concert, supporting the teenage band members late into the night. A few weeks later she was free-style dancing at a celebration in her honor.