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I’ve learned that it is always important to have our thought grounded in the understanding that we were made spiritual and never material. The basis of this is in the two accounts of creation in the first and second chapters of the book of Genesis.
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy shows us that the first chapter of Genesis portrays man as a perfect, spiritual, and complete creation of God, whereas the conflicting creation story in the second chapter presents a picture of man as mortal, material, and incomplete. Accordingly, it is always helpful to ask ourselves where our thoughts lie. Are we each recognizing our identity as an unchangeable and loved spiritual idea or falling for the mistaken belief of being a flawed mortal?
In the first chapter of Genesis, we learn that God created everything, that His creation is spiritual, and that He called it very good. Regarding the creation of man, it says, “So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them” (Genesis 1:27). The second chapter paints a different picture, where all is material. Adam is made from dust, Eve is made from Adam’s rib, and they are tempted by evil.
We are never separate from God; we are always spiritual and always embraced in divine Love.
Our true biography is in the spiritual creation account. As we pray and study daily to fill our thoughts with the good and true inherent in our spiritual identity, we let go of our false sense of identity, as there is no room for both the false and the true. Then we can always expect good, and be alert and ready to meet any suggestion that we are unloved, lacking, or alone. We won’t take the bait and believe those temptations. We’ll say, No! And instead of ignoring them, we will recognize their unreality and refute them with truth.
“And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31) is a complete statement. There are no ifs or buts. The acknowledgment that we are made very good, by God and God alone, has always been a helpful guide to my prayers. We are the reflection of God right here and now, and always have been.
The two Genesis accounts side by side help us differentiate what is real from what is unreal. Making this separation is applicable in every circumstance, and I have found it especially helpful in romantic relationships.
Before I met my husband, I was in a relationship with someone I’d met in high school. During the course of this relationship we broke up twice. For a brief period before we broke up the first time, I hadn’t been studying Christian Science. I wasn’t going to Sunday School or doing daily metaphysical study. When we broke up, it felt as though my world turned upside down. I felt alone and afraid and even found it difficult to eat much for two weeks.
We eventually got back together, but I also started studying Christian Science again because I’d missed it a lot. I didn’t like what I had experienced during our split, and I wanted my thoughts to reflect my true, spiritual identity. I began actively praying about the relationship.
When we broke up the second time, it was for good. But this time it was different. Through my resumed study of Christian Science I was learning all about myself as God’s daughter. I frequently studied the spiritual creation story. I was beginning to understand that God is the true source of everything—including joy and happiness. This goodness could never go away or be lost. God also gives us dominion, and to me that means rising to meet every challenge and circumstance.
Right before the final breakup, I began to see parallels between my situation and Eve’s from the second chapter of Genesis. Through prayer, I began to realize that I had not been seeing my completeness. I had been believing that a person or situation had the power to take away my joy. In this chapter, we read that Eve ate from the tree of knowledge of good and evil, and that she was blamed and punished for wrongdoing. According to this story, Eve was actually given life from Adam’s rib, so she couldn’t live without him! I had been feeling a similar way. But this false sense of womanhood was not my identity. I had to throw out those false beliefs and know my true, spiritual identity. I realized that I was good, happy, joyful, intelligent, and complete—made in the perfect image and likeness of God.
Understanding our spiritual identity as God’s loved creation lifts our thought so we can understand God more clearly. This understanding is available to all of us. We can all gain a clearer sense of God’s goodness and love. And because God is All, and created all, this goodness is all-inclusive and everywhere. So could we ever break up with or be separate from ever-present divine Love? No!
I was learning how to love as God loves—selflessly and impartially.
Through this spiritual reasoning, I saw that, while there was love in that relationship, my ability to feel loved didn’t come from that individual. I could feel God’s love directly. I wasn’t lacking anything, because God’s love is infinite, ever present, and it speaks to our hearts. I had a new and refreshed understanding of myself: I was created “very good.” I was not an incomplete woman, dependent on others for life or happiness.
When I was growing up, the Christian Science practitioner my family often called used to ask me, “Are you a girl from Genesis, chapter 1, or Genesis, chapter 2?” It was such a helpful question when my thought would start to fall into beliefs of inadequacy, loneliness, heartache, and insecurity. As I prayed, I came to find that my happiness was spiritual. When our happiness is spiritual, it is clear and consistent. Science and Health tells us, “Man is not a pendulum, swinging between evil and good, joy and sorrow, sickness and health, life and death” (p. 246). This idea was dear to me during this time, and I referred to it frequently. We are never separate from God; we are always spiritual and always embraced in divine Love.
The only thing that had changed in the circumstances surrounding the first breakup with this individual and the second was that I had resumed studying Christian Science and had started turning to God for guidance for all sorts of things, including that relationship. I was truly demonstrating what I was, and in reality, had been all along: God’s spiritual creation.
The morning after the second breakup, I got up, dressed, and ran errands without a second thought. That person was still dear to me, in that I loved him as a fellow child of God. I felt whole and complete, and could see clearly that God loved and was leading each of us. There was no fear or anguish. The healing was complete.
Instead of feeling as if I had lost love, I felt I had gained an expanded, grander sense of God as Love. I was learning how to love as God loves—selflessly and impartially. I also realized just how much God loved me, and I began to love myself as God’s daughter. As a result, the insecurities I’d held on to during that relationship fell away. In all my relationships since, and now in my marriage, I love from the standpoint of expressing God’s love, which is always whole and complete. I am truly grateful that we are all always in divine Love!
Have a lovely evening,
Elaina
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