Tithing

I learned a valuable lesson in this church; and that lesson is the importance of tithing. I have learned that tithing is a very important sign of spiritual growth. Tithing, of course, is giving ten percent of your income to your church.

For many years I was self-employed and didn’t really know what my income was going to be each year. One year, due to some very bad choices on my part, I almost lost my business. I started losing money at a tremendous rate, and during this difficulty, which lasted almost a year, ten percent of my income was a negative number. So, I had a very difficult decision to make. Was I going to continue giving to the church when I had no income, when I had less than no income; because I was depleting our family savings for quite some time.

We learn in Christian Science that God is the source of all good, and that His good is infinite. I knew I had some big lessons to learn about trusting God with everything in my life. It came very clear to me that, if I was going to trust God, I needed to continue to contribute to the church. So, every week I would take a deep breath and write a check; and every week I would watch our savings become more and more depleted. I trusted God, because I knew that I needed to learn something really important. Just before our savings ran out, the business turned around, and I very quickly earned back everything that I had lost.

I learned a huge lesson about trusting God with everything in my life and showing my gratitude to Him by tithing. I am actually quite grateful for this experience and for the lesson it taught me; and for the practitioner help I had at the time that helped to straighten out my thinking, so that my life would be more in line with what God wanted for us.

Christian Science is a tremendous way of life. I am grateful for Mrs. Eddy for giving us this Science, for fighting the battles before us, winning, and showing how to properly live a Godlike life.