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A Glowing Inner Peace
By Marta Greenwood
For much of my life, I was led to believe that I was stupid. I grew up in a
Middle Eastern culture, where women were taught to be submissive and silent.
When I moved to the United Kingdom and had two daughters, I wanted them to
have all the things I had lacked in my own upbringing. I didn’t want them to
miss out on anything. So I encouraged them in their academic work as much as
I could.
My efforts to help one of my daughters ran into a roadblock, however, when
she was about to take her exams to move to a senior school. At the parents’
evening—a time when teachers and parents discuss the pupils and their
progress—one of the teachers told me I needed to help Laura more with her
academic work, as most parents did at this school.
I replied that I trusted Laura’s abilities and I knew she would do well
without additional help. This was a bold thing for me to do. It was more
usual for me to be submissive before the teacher’s authority.
I’m not sure she agreed with me, but I had good reasons for refusing. First,
I did not feel able to help my daughter with her academic work. Her courses
were beyond my simple understanding of English. I also felt that I wasn’t
smart enough to help her. But the conviction that I was stupid was about to
change dramatically—although I didn’t realize it at the time. I had just
begun to study Christian Science, and I was learning to view my daughters
and myself in a whole new light.
For me, the first lesson of this Science of Christianity was Jesus’ teaching
that “God is Spirit.” I also gained great inspiration from Mary Baker Eddy’s
statement in Science and Health: “Spirit is God, and man is His image and
likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.” If God is Spirit,
I reasoned it must follow naturally that His creation or likeness is
spiritual and perfect. This gave me such comfort.
I was also learning a whole new concept of my identity. Christian Science
was helping me understand the Bible’s message that God created man in His
own image and likeness, and that His creation is very good.
I was beginning to feel that knowing this was true prayer, acknowledging God
as the source of our intelligence, our strength, our health, our life and
our very existence.
If God is the infinite One, I reasoned that I and my daughters, as His
image, were perfect in the ever- present now. It didn’t make any difference
what I thought about myself. This was a fact for me and my children.
With this conviction, I felt I could trust my daughter’s well-being to God.
I felt free and not burdened with worry. So I was shocked when she was the
only one in her year who did not pass her entrance exam to the senior
school!
I felt so betrayed and upset. I was too scared to challenge the school’s
authority, although my husband did so, without success.
At that time, I was on the parent-teachers’ association, working to raise
school funds. We had arranged a quiz night event, but I was so upset, I
didn’t want to be involved. I resented doing anything for the school.
On top of my mental anguish, I was in physical pain. After Laura’s birth, I
had developed chronic backache. I had been to many osteopaths and
chiropractors, to no avail. Now it had become even worse, and I could hardly
stand up for any amount of time.
I went back to studying the Bible and Science and Health to get the comfort
and healing I was desperately looking for.
I’ve found the terms reflection and image are very important in relation to
Christian Science healing. Both terms refer to our actual nature as God’s
likeness, or spiritual idea. Just as our reflection in a mirror is the image
of the original, we reflect God and are the image of God, perfect, just as
He is.
So I asked myself, “What was I reflecting in my thinking for my daughter?”
Was I really reflecting the perfection that is mine as God’s image? I was so
upset for her and I was hurting for her. But was this my true purpose as
God’s likeness?
I needed freedom from my own dark thoughts, so I could affirm the reality of
my spiritual nature, as well as my daughter’s. I wanted to be at peace with
myself. Only in this way could I help her.
According to Science and Health, “the immortal, spiritual man . . . reflects
the eternal substance, or Spirit, which mortals hope for.” This was the
spiritual sense of reflection I had seen in the first chapter of Genesis.
Then the original, divinely created man—in this case my daughter and me—is
God’s image and likeness, which of necessity meant a likeness to God in
nature and character.
The second chapter of Genesis, from verse 6 onward, presents a wholly
opposite account of creation, and as I studied it, I realized that this view
had colored my view of myself for my whole life. In this material
interpretation, there is little hint of man’s likeness to God and the purely
spiritual nature all of us—both men and women—actually have.
Instead it contrasts God as Spirit and man as material—God as immortal, and
man as mortal. The great scientific fact of reflection, expressed through
spiritual law, is not presented at all. Within this material view of life,
stupidity, fear-based submissiveness and other negative qualities seem to
predominate. But by studying Christian Science, I was beginning to move
beyond this material view to a much deeper understanding of my spiritual
nature.
I was also beginning to realize how much my own thinking was limiting Laura
and me. I hadn’t really understood the law of divine Spirit, which reveals
only what is beautiful, good and true—in brief, Godlike. This is what we are
all truly supposed to reflect, not the feelings of pressure and frustration
I had been having.
It was like somebody had switched on a light in my mind! This new
understanding gave me such peace. I was beginning to see my true nature as
the perfect child of a perfect God—and that was also true for my daughter. I
felt a glowing inner peace.
With this new perspective, every feeling of hurt or resentment went away. I
was ready to support the school’s fundraising efforts.
I volunteered to do all the washing up for the evening. I washed over 600
dinner plates, glasses and side plates—as well as all the cutlery and
cooking utensils! I was on my feet for hours, but I felt such freedom.
It was like somebody had opened the doors of heaven and I had glimpsed a
whole new world. It didn’t matter one bit if my daughter was leaving the
school; I knew she would do well. I also realized that the assumption that I
was stupid, which had stayed with me since childhood, had always been a
lie—it had never been part of my true spiritual nature.
The parent-teacher association wanted to pay for the work I did, but I
refused any money. I felt the healing was payment enough. I was not only
healed of the backaches forever, but I also gained the confidence to write
articles in English, which wasn’t something I’d ever have dreamed possible
when I first moved to the United Kingdom.
Through the spiritual insights I’d had, I discovered that my own identity in
divine Mind was always intact. I had never lost out on anything. I found my
purpose as the perfect reflection of Love in my own individual, Christ like
identity.
The next day, the chair of the association brought me two rose bushes. I
call them my freedom roses because of the wonderful healing I had that
night.
My daughter is now a young woman. She went on to two other schools that
allowed her to express her free spirit. She did very well in university. I
realize now that she was being led, all the time, to her right place.
Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health, “The Divine Being must be reflected
by man, else man is not the image and likeness of the patient, tender, and
true, the One ‘altogether lovely.’”
This shows that if the limited beliefs of the limited human consciousness
are removed, we see God expressed.
I love the gift of roses, because they remind me of the Christ, Truth, that
Jesus so bravely gave to humanity. When they are in bloom, their scent fills
the whole room; to me, it is the aroma of Christ, the proof of God’s love
for humanity as presented in the life of Jesus. Through my study of
Christian Science, I discovered that my daughter and I have our identity in
God. We express the aroma of the Christ and we can never lose the perfect
identity God has given us.
Reprint permission from
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