If you've been wronged

A Christian Science perspective.

Injustice. Many of us have experienced it in some form – the feeling that something wrong has been done and that you or others have been victimized. Injustice sometimes brings with it loss of hope, opportunity, freedom, perhaps the loss of relationships or security.

Even under those circumstances, it’s important not to accept that you’re powerless. There is a higher law that you can turn to in prayer. It’s the law that Jesus taught, and it’s a law that heals. You may not be able to see it, but, just like the air you breathe, this law of divine justice is there for you.

Through understanding God as ever-present divine Love, and by turning to His law, injustice can be overturned and healed. Mary Baker Eddy, the original publisher of the Monitor, wrote in her primary work, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” that “nothing is lost, and all is won, by a right estimate of what is real” (p. 360). This suggests that to heal injustice, we must gain the right sense of God and His ever-present care for us. Science and Health describes God as “universal, eternal, divine Love, which changeth not and causeth no evil, disease, nor death”
(p. 140).

Healing injustice through gaining a better understanding of God is not new. The Bible gives many examples of people who turned to divine Love and saw justice restored in their lives. Take, for example, a Shunammite woman, who, with her child, had to leave her home and her land because of a severe drought. Seven years later, when the drought broke, she returned to find that her property had been taken over. She was left with nothing.

When she went to the king to seek the return of her property, he happened to be speaking to someone who could vouch for her integrity and her claim to the land. No mere coincidence, this can be seen as an example of divine law in operation, bringing everything into order. The king, as the Bible says, “appointed unto her a certain officer, saying, Restore all that was hers, and all the fruits of the field since the day that she left the land, even until now” (II Kings 8:6). Justice was restored, abundantly and appropriately.

We can gain strength and learn from this example. Christian Science explains that God is divine Love, who cares for us all equally, and whose law is always there to help and protect us. In times of trouble we ask Love to relieve our fears and show us the way out. By accepting God’s universal presence, we learn that Love is unchangeable, dependable, and reliable.

The results of such acknowledgment are practical because they open us up to new solutions and also to the good that’s already present. Expecting good, knowing its source is in God, frees us from depression, stress, and despair. It enables us to receive God’s good thoughts, His unerring and perfect direction.
Mary Baker Eddy, speaking from vast personal experience, once said to a church congregation: “Remember, thou canst be brought into no condition, be it ever so severe, where Love has not been before thee and where its tender lesson is not awaiting thee. Therefore despair not nor murmur, for that which seeketh to save, to heal, and to deliver, will guide thee, if thou seekest this guidance” (“The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany,” pp. 149–150).

We can begin to understand and experience the fact that there is no power apart from God, good, operating in our lives. This understanding and conviction will free us from fear and inspire us to turn to divine Spirit, who will provide us with the practical answers we seek in every situation.

Getting the right understanding of God’s love for us, listening for those Love-directed ideas and solutions, and following through on them, are ways to face down even the most trying and challenging injustices.

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