When I was a child, my family had a greatly loved dog. She was very much a part of our family. When she unexpectedly died, I was heartbroken, and no one could comfort me.
So, a year or so later, when my family decided to get another dog, I took a firm stand. I would have nothing, absolutely nothing, to do with the new dog. I was determined never to have to go through the hurt of losing a pet again. But the dog our family welcomed was ever so patient with me, and over time he gently and easily found a place in my heart.
This dog became a treasured part of our family, and by the time he “moved on” I had learned something about love – what I later came to know as divine Love. I’d recognized that the answer wasn’t to seal up my heart from loving so that I would never hurt again, but to open my heart to love. This helped me see more clearly that the animal I’d loved and treasured still lived, even though I couldn’t see him physically.
A decade or so later, I learned about Christian Science and was introduced to the term “divine Love” as another name for God. In the early part of our marriage, my husband, who had attended Christian Science Sunday School until college, began a diligent study of Christian Science. He did not push or really even encourage me to take up this study with him. He was on his own search to understand God.
Some time later, circumstances compelled me to contact a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. This metaphysical treatment led me on a journey out of loss, self-pity, and self-centeredness and into my own deep study of Christian Science. Within a year or so, with no mutual planning, both my husband and I had Christian Science class instruction, an in-depth course on Christian Science healing.
These steps led me to understanding God in an entirely different light – as the sole creator, as completely good, and as our Father-Mother. I was also beginning to know God as Love – divine Love.
This Love is what I’d had just an inkling of many years before with our second family dog. Knowing God as Love and as Spirit helps us understand true, spiritual, limitless love and life, because it opens thought to see through a spiritual lens rather than a material one. Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, writes, “To be ‘with the Lord’ is to be in obedience to the law of God, to be absolutely governed by divine Love, – by Spirit, not by matter” (“Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,” p. 14). Although I didn’t fully understand this concept at the time, I had learned that loving meant seeing my dogs’ lives as never truly ending. My prayer is to understand that everyone’s life is eternal as the spiritual reflection of God, who is eternal Life.
This kind of spiritual seeing uplifts, purifies, and heals – not through human effort, but through a growing understanding of Love’s presence and goodness. Does this understanding mean that we have no more problems to deal with in our lives or in the world? No, but it does mean that it is always possible to gain a clearer, higher, and holier view of God’s forever, spiritual creation – to see as divine Love sees!
Divine Love blesses and uplifts – even the young lady who thought she could never love another dog but learned instead to love even more.
Adapted from an article published in the Sept. 20, 2021, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.
