Living in the atmosphere of God’s goodness
Even when illness seems unavoidable, it is possible to overcome fear – and experience protection and safety as well, as a woman experienced during a mononucleosis outbreak at her college.
Many have expressed fears about the effects of the coronavirus in their communities and beyond. And some have observed that fear itself is a contagion that needs to be held in check, too.
From my study and practice of Christian Science, I’ve found that it is indeed possible to overcome fear – in a way that brings healing and safety as well.
The Apostle John taught, “Where God’s love is, there is no fear, because God’s perfect love takes away fear” (I John 4:18, International Children’s Bible). God’s love is more powerful than either fear or disease. And when we learn, as Christ Jesus taught, that the kingdom of God is already within us, then we find we have nothing to fear. And we more readily witness the power of God’s love to heal and protect.
One year when I was in college, there was an epidemic of mononucleosis on our campus. More and more students were being taken to the hospital. At one point, one of my friends said to me, “Tina, you’re going to be the next one to get this illness, because you were with those students who went to the hospital yesterday.”
This woke me up to the need to do more to support my and my community’s well-being than succumb to fear. For me, this meant praying to gain a deeper, spiritual view of who is truly in control and what our true nature is as God’s beloved children.
So I turned to my Bible, where I found these passages very comforting: “The spirit of God hath made me, and the breath of the Almighty hath given me life” (Job 33:4), and “I know that whatever God does, it endures forever; nothing can be added to it nor can anything be taken from it” (Ecclesiastes 3:14, Amplified Bible).
This helped me see that the goodness God gives us is eternal. Nothing bad, such as disease, can be added to divine good, nor can proper functioning be taken from it. The Apostle Paul tells us that God, Spirit, “giveth to all life, and breath, and all things;... in him we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:25, 28). So the actual substance of our health is in and sustained by divine Spirit.
Since God, Spirit, is eternally harmonious, perfect in every function and action, and unchangingly supreme, then the atmosphere in which we – the spiritual expression of God’s goodness – live and move and breathe must be always good. Health rather than disease, harmony rather than discord, are natural to God’s creation, and cannot be lost. This spiritual reality remains unchanged, regardless of human circumstance.
My prayers embraced not just myself, but all humanity. In “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, highlights that everyone is governed by the one divine Mind, God, which communicates only health, peace, and freedom to His children (see, for instance, p. 467). All of us have an inherent capacity to be conscious of this divine good. Then we find less fear and more peace in our lives.
That’s what I experienced that time at college. I never had any symptoms, and furthermore, there was a turnaround in the situation on campus. No more students were sent to the hospital with this condition.
We read in the Bible, “I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree. Yet he passed away, and, lo, he was not:... Mark the perfect man, and behold the upright: for the end of that man is peace” (Psalms 37:35-37). Evil, including illness, has no legitimate power in the face of the authority of God, good. As God’s beloved children – His flawless, spiritual reflection – we live and move and breathe in this atmosphere of pure Love.
No matter where we live in the world, we can hold to the true nature of everyone as made in the flawless spiritual image of divine Love, God, who maintains us in that harmonious state eternally. This empowers us to overcome fear and feel God’s healing love, which fills all space.