Words can heal

Six reasons why kind, encouraging words are your best asset, taken from Wordscanheal.org:

1.The power to speak healing words is available to you at all times, in all places, under all circumstances. Healing words are lighter than a laptop, more portable than a credit card. They can never be lost, stolen, or left at home.

2.Healing words cost you nothing. No matter how financially strapped you are, you can give lavishly with encouraging words.

3.Speaking kind words is a win-win situation. Both the speaker and the one spoken to, walk away feeling great.

4.Healing words can calm better than a tranquilizer, with no adverse side effects. However, they are habit forming. (thank goodness!)

5.Encouraging words are a non-depletable resource. No matter how many you use, you always have an unlimited supply.

6.Encouraging words yield high returns. You spend a small amount of energy and time, and the effect on the person spoken to can last for years-or even change a life.

WordsCanHeal.org

Melissa Hayden is a Christian Science practitioner in Salem, OR. You can find more information and additional articles at this link.  If you like what you’re reading, click the “add me” button.

A universal solution

Resolve, dissolve, absolve.  Each comes from the same original Latin word which means to release or unbind.  Doesn’t that sound like the action of divine Love?  Author Mary Baker Eddy says that Love, God, meets every human need.  Always.  (see Science and Health page 494)  That makes Love a universal solution.

The Bible agrees.  In the book of I John, it says that perfect Love casts out fear (see 4:18).

Understanding and obeying the precepts behind this Bible verse, brings permanent release from fear, pain, and lack.  It unbinds the fetters of any limitation.  It resolves, dissolves, absolves.

Melissa Hayden is a Christian Science practitioner in Salem, OR. You can find more information and additional articles at this link.  If you like what you’re reading, click the “add me” button.

Universal Solvent

There is a passage in Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy that explains that Love – God – is a universal solvent.  (see page 242)  Solvent has several definitions that are useful here (see Ask.com).  The first, from chemistry is, a substance which dissolves, forming a solution.  The second is, something that solves or explains.  Both are helpful in learning to know God better.

The first definition is particularly interesting because it fits right in with the Christian Science view of Spirit as substance.  Building on that theme, you could say that Spirit, God dissolves whatever is unlike Him, that is, whatever is unlike good.  Out of that dissolution then comes a solution, an answer, even a cure.  For example, by dissolving sickness, health is revealed.  By removing sin, purity is made plain.  By overcoming fear, peace is at hand.  Reasoning further, we can see that true substance is always the solution.  That fact simply dissolves any other conclusion.

The second definition also squares with Christian Science which defines God in part as All-knowing and All-acting (ibid pg. 587).  That means that any true solution or explanation is divine, coming straight from Principle, another name for God.  Love’s solution is intelligent and sufficient.  And it is not unknowable, but fully explained and fully understood through the same divine Mind that enacted it.

You may have noticed that I’ve introduced a number of names for God: Love, Spirit, Principle, Mind.  Add to that Life, Soul, and Truth and you have a complete picture of God as defined in the Bible and explained in Science and Health.  Knowing the fullness and allness of God brings to light more clearly how the universal solvent operates.  This broad and complete characterization of Deity leaves no gaps in His creation where a solution could go missing.  Every need is met by trusting this divine fact.

Melissa Hayden is a Christian Science practitioner in Salem, OR. You can find more information and additional articles at this link.  If you like what you’re reading, click the “add me” button.

Premise —> Conclusion

Most of our views of things are conclusions.  We’ve already made up our minds regarding this or that, and then we go about our business thinking that’s just the way it is.  But what if the premise your conclusion is based on, is faulty?  What if you started with wrong information?  The consequence would be that you’d end up in the wrong place.  What??

Well, let’s look at some pretty common conclusions about the body, for example: I’m overweight, I’m old, I’m sick.  You can take a look in the mirror or you can gauge your feelings and say, “Yep, seems true to me.”  Yet the information you’re relying on to come to that conclusion may be wrong.  In fact, if it comes from the human mind, I’ll guarantee you that it IS wrong!

That’s because the human mind has nothing but its own viewpoint to put forth.  This is the same mind that sees illusions like railroad tracks converging in the distance.  Or that thinks the sun is setting and rising.  The Bible offers a different option: lean not unto your own understanding. (Proverbs 3:5)  And just as we can be educated to understand that railroad tracks actually follow a strict and consistent spacing, and that the earth is doing the rotating, we can be educated to have different views about the body – and about everything.

The rest of that passage from Proverbs explains how.  It goes like this: Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths. (verse 6)  Let me say it in modern English: Look to God with all your being.  Don’t trust your own view of things.  Instead, every moment trust Him and He will take care of every detail, no matter what.  Pretty straight forward, don’t you think?

So the next time you catch yourself making a conclusion with a not so happy ending, go back to your premise and see what God has to say about it.  He will definitely give you a better, truer viewpoint – one that you can more happily live with.

Melissa Hayden is a Christian Science practitioner in Salem, OR. You can find more information and additional articles at this link.  If you like what you’re reading, click the “add me” button.

Mental Obedience

Jesus says in the Sermon on the Mount (see Matthew 5-7), “Ye have heard that it was said by them of old time, Thou shalt not commit adultery: But I say unto you, That whosoever looketh on a woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his heart.” Jesus was making it pretty clear that you must control the thought behind the act, not just the act itself. That requires us to be pretty scrupulous about our thinking if we are to be obedient to that directive.

Mary Baker Eddy offers a way to do just that.  She says,”Stand porter at the door of thought.  Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously.”  (See Science and Health p.392)  Her statement, taken together with Jesus’ shows that you can prevent from occurring – even in thought – that which you would never allow to happen in your body.

What if this consciousness watching were applied to each of the commandments?  We would never even imagine harming our neighbor let alone indulge in wishful thinking about something that belonged to him or her.  We wouldn’t allow ourselves to even consider stretching the truth, let alone concocting an outright lie.  Our mental relationships with our parents would be respectful and joyous.  And at no time would we devote more thought to anything else than we do to God.

How do you suppose that kind of care would play out in our lives?  It’s worth giving it a try.

Melissa Hayden is a Christian Science practitioner in Salem, OR. You can find more information and additional articles at this link.  If you like what you’re reading, click the “add me” button.