Persistence that wins
If you've ever tried to help someone and been rebuffed, you may have felt like giving up. But the need is often just the opposite: to love even more, though the form that love takes needs to be wisely considered.
A few years ago I was involved in a very difficult relationship. Feeling rejected and utterly worthless, I reacted with anger, resentment, and sometimes hatred. This emotional reaction was no help. It was nothing more than puffed-up egotism.
Unfortunately, my eyelids soon became badly swollen, and my face also was distorted. I knew what Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes -- "The mortal body being but the objective state of the mortal mind, this mind must be renovated to improve the body" n1 -- and so I turned to prayer to effect a change -- a change to a more harmonious, more Christlike basis of thought. I enlisted the services of a Christian Science practitioner to help me.
n1 Retrospection and Introspection,m p. 34.
After deciding to be calm instead of irritable, I began to insist on my God-given right to see man as God's own expression, reflecting intelligence, wholeness, integrity, justice. Man as God knows and creates him cannot be austere, self- centered, disruptive, for God is infinite Life and Love. Nor can he be painfully sensitive or self-righteous. I found a deep inner calm and began to know myself better. I expected healing.
Another lesson, however, needed to be learned. I somehow thought that I was going to accomplish this healing all by myself. In speaking with the practitioner, I announced in a rather belabored tone, "I am persisting!m " His quiet response was, "Divine Love persists." It was just what I needed to hear. Indeed, man reflectsm God's power, as Christ Jesus proved. He humbly admitted, "I can of mine own self do nothing: . . . I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me." n2
n2 John 5:30.
clearly it is divine Love itself that causes us to love those we meet and know. Sometimes in the face of rejection, antagonism, or indifference to our own needs, it may not appear easy to love. But knowing that immortal Love causes its emanation to shine with love, and willingly responding to Love's impulsion, we find the task easier. Feeling the warmth of divine Love, we can let Love love us and all. Then there is no longer either a victim or victimization.
As I became filled with these uplifting truths, I was no longer impressed by the swelling and ugly face that I wore. One afternoon I happened to glance in a mirror and saw a clear, radiant, normal face looking back at me. And not only was I healed physically but I had also learned in some degree how not to react to emotional conflict. I felt free to love my fellowman more than I ever had before. DAILY BIBLE VERSE The law made nothing perfect, but the bringing in of a better hope did. Hebrews 7:19
