Lonely?

LONELINESS can present quite a challenge. But we're equal to that challenge and can begin to meet it as we feel more of our unity with God. A good companionship can certainly provide helpful support. Yet even this, of itself, will not bring the joy and satisfaction we so yearn for on a permanent basis. The answer to our innermost needs comes only through a spiritual awakening to the wonderful fact that we are entirely loved by and always inseparable from God, the source of true good. A person is never really the source of our happiness or the reason for our being, although he or she may seem to be. God alone has made us, and as His offspring each of us is actually complete, fulfilled, right now. Despite evidence to the contrary, this is the truth of our being. Man is God's expression, reflecting His goodness and perfection. Man's purpose is to glorify God.

All of God's offspring naturally manifest joy, peace, and productive activity. We don't, then, have to yield to thoughts of uselessness or isolation. Though we rejoice in enriching relationships, it's not so much an ``extra special someone'' who will make life worth living as it is an acceptance of our unchanging relationship to God, the source of all love. This will improve the quality of our daily experience in the deepest way.

As we recognize our divine heritage of good, our God-given completeness, and claim it for ourselves, we begin to feel a wonderful dominion and freedom right where we are. If we approach life from a more spiritual perspective, we gain a genuine interest in living. We learn that our innate desire to give cannot be suppressed, for God always provides opportunities for us to bless and be blessed.

How do we wake to this sense of unity with God and learn more about our true nature? Through prayer, quiet communion with God; through systematically silencing the materialistic, inward-turning clamor of the carnal mind and persistently opening our thought to what God, divine Mind, is telling us. We gain much as we obey the Biblical injunction ``Be still, and know that I am God.'' 1

God is Love, and He is always present. We can turn to Him at any time for comfort and direction. His love is impartial. He cares for each one of us. Discerning this spiritual fact in prayer and striving to demonstrate it daily, we cease to feel alone or separate from good.

In reality there is just one Ego -- God -- and man is the likeness of this divine Ego. The notion that men and women have personal egos neither enhances individuality nor promotes satisfaction. Rather, it breeds dissatisfaction and sin.

God and man are inseparable, as Christ Jesus proved through his inspired statements and healing works. Wherever man is, God is. Whatever God is, man expresses. Because there is never a moment when man exists without God, there is never really a time that we can be alone or forgotten, without Love and its expression. And because God is not lonely, man is not. As you know this for a fact, you will see all kinds of evidence of His love and care for you.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes: ``Mortals must gravitate Godward, their affections and aims grow spiritual, -- they must near the broader interpretations of being, and gain some proper sense of the infinite, -- in order that sin and mortality may be put off.

``This scientific sense of being, forsaking matter for Spirit, by no means suggests man's absorption into Deity and the loss of his identity, but confers upon man enlarged individuality, a wider sphere of thought and action, a more expansive love, a higher and more permanent peace.'' 2

Man is both the object and reflection of divine Love. If we are truly conscious of our inseparability from divine Love, we feel loved and are at peace -- whether we are physically alone or in the presence

of others. Isn't it time to reestablish in thought your relationship with Him? 1 Psalms 46:10. 2 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 265. -- 30 --{et