“Stand in His presence, unafraid, In praise lift up your voice.” (Hymn 342)

To consciously stand in the presence of God IS to be unafraid. When fear floods into our thought and claims to paralyze us, it’s a very good thing to ask, “Is God afraid of this? Is absolute Truth afraid of a lie? Is absolute Love afraid of hatred? Is omnipotent Life afraid of death?”

No! Just as light knows nothing of darkness, Truth knows nothing of a lie. Love knows nothing of hatred. Life knows nothing of death. And you are the perfect reflection of infinite Truth, Love, and Life, so you are not afraid, and you never will be.

When you feel afraid, lift up your voice in praise to God. Thank Him with all your heart. Acknowledge Him as the only presence, the only power, the only Mind, the only Life. Because just as fear and Love can’t coexist, fear and gratitude can’t coexist. Gratitude displaces fear just as surely as light displaces darkness.

And isn’t that how healing happens in Christian Science? The light of Christ, Truth, displaces the darkness of limited material belief. The light doesn’t have to fight off the darkness or fix the darkness. It just has to shine. And the darkness can’t hold out against the light. When you turn on a light, you know that the darkness will disappear immediately. Why? Because the darkness is not an actual thing, but the absence of an actual thing. When you walk into a darkened room, you can always turn on a flashlight and know that the darkness will disappear. But if you walk into a room filled with light, you can’t turn on a flashdark and darken it.

Now think about that as you consider this line from the Preface of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

“ The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus’ time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation.” (S&H xi:9-14)

In the light of divine Principle, the perfect law of Love, the darkness of sin and disease cannot stand. In the perfect order, harmony, and efficiency of divine Principle, there is no place for chaos, discord, and randomness. They can’t coexist. So the more we understand the ever-presence of that perfect Principle, the more we see that its opposite – the chaos and limitation called sickness and sin – must be illusion. They lose their reality in human consciousness the only place where they could even claim to be – and inevitably disappear.

Do we destroy real sin and sickness? No! We withdraw our belief that sin and sickness are real. And that makes room for Life, Truth and Love to fill our thought and our experience. Then we can stand firmly in the truth, even when we feel surrounded by lies.

“Stand then in His great might…” (Hymn 312)

In the Bible story of David and Goliath, David stood in God’s great might! He knew his source. He knew that his strength wasn’t some personal possession that might or might not measure up. He went out to fight as God’s representative, and he knew that all the power of God was behind him. Whenever we stand up in God’s name – in His nature – all of the great might of God stands behind us, strengthening, supporting, and protecting us.

David rejected the sword-and-spear approach. He refused Saul’s offer of the royal armor. Instead, he chose five smooth stones from a nearby brook and a simple slingshot. I like to think of those stones as five concrete thoughts that you can turn to when your problems seem overwhelming – like Goliath. Of course, each one has to choose his own smooth stones, but here are a few that have helped me:

1. First, refuse to worship the name of a problem. Don’t let the name of a disease scare you. Instead, call it nothing – no thing! – and know that God didn’t create it, because He is entirely good and can’t create something unlike Himself.
2. Second, remember that the problem has no place to be, because God fills all space. I’ve often been helped by the words that I learned in my very first Sunday School class: “There is no spot where God is not.”
3. Third, know that the problem has no cause. God, infinite good, is the only real cause, and He can only cause good.
4. Fourth, know that the problem has no course to run. Progress comes from God, so only good can progress, and only good has form and pattern.
5. And finally, remember that you don’t have your own frightened little finite mind to believe in the problem. God, the one infinite Mind, is the ONLY Mind, and He knows nothing that is mindless or destructive.

Then you’ll be ready to run out to meet your Goliath problems, glad for an opportunity to learn more about God’s great might. It only took one stone to kill Goliath. It didn’t take an army or an arsenal. Just one pure heart totally convinced that God was the only power.

Greetings! In preparation for Annual Meeting, I was asked to share a little of how I became a Christian Science nurse. Back in 1978, the Chestnut Hill Benevolent Association had us work in the housekeeping department before we could start our training. One day, as I was scrubbing someone’s bathroom, I looked into the room and watched, as three Christian Science nurses sang Mother’s Evening Prayer to the patient. I was in awe – their voices were angelic, and the room was filled with an indescribable light. I felt the healing presence of the Christ – and that is when I knew that I wanted to be a Christian Science nurse. Since that time, I have had the privilege of witnessing this Christly light that dispels all fear. I have seen many healings, including those which the medical field would have said were impossible to heal.

A special part of my early training occurred in 1980 when I was mentored for 2 weeks by native-Atlantan Anne TuftsChurch with Morning Light. My experiences have taken me to different parts of the country. But I feel very blessed to be back home now, in the community that nurtured my beginning steps as a Christian Science nurse.

ML embraces this community in many ways. Christian Science nursing is a precious ministry. It is grounded in the Manual By-Law which states that one must have a “demonstrable knowledge of Christian Science practice.” This is where the ministry begins. Each of us has had training to prepare us with the skills we need to give proper care in a variety of situations, but it is the dedicated ministry as a practicing Christian Scientist that makes all the difference. In Mark we read the story of the raising of Jairus’ daughter. The parents, Peter, James, and John were allowed to be in the room when Jesus took her hand and raised her. The disciples were witnessing the presence of the Christ. Their thought had to have been pure and uplifted, else they would not have been allowed to stay in the room. I feel sure that they comforted the parents, as they knew healing was certain. Also, when Jesus told them to give her something to eat, they ministered to those practical needs. To minister is to serve, to serve God and mankind.

Thank you for cherishing this ministry with us.

Linda Blaisdell