Yielding to His Eternal Presence

Consecration is such an important part of our lives. As Mary Baker Eddy tells us, the more we progress, the more consecrated we need to become and the more dependent on our Father for everything in our lives.

A recent Lesson on Substance reminded me of a wonderful healing I had many years ago. My husband and I had been living in California where he was going to school. I had become very ill with pneumonia. At that time I neither got medical help nor called a practitioner, which was very unwise. I was getting worse and losing weight. Eventually I did call a practitioner from the Plainfield Church, even though I lived in California. She took my case and helped me. She gave me a line from Unity of Good by Mary Baker Eddy, on page 60: “Christ cannot come to mortal and material sense, which sees not God. This false sense of substance must yield to His eternal presence, and so dissolve.”

As the practitioner prayed for me, I began to ponder what it was to have a false sense of substance. I wasn’t really sure at that time what it meant. I certainly know I thought my life was in matter. I had yet to learn that my life was not in matter but in God.

At that time my husband and I were making a decision about where to live, as he was finishing school. He was from the west coast and had a very good job offer there. It was a great climate, nice life style, and a beautiful place to live. We thought that it was where we would, or should, live. I was having an internal battle because I wanted to come back to New Jersey, which was my home, but mainly because the church was here and a healing practitioner. I yearned to be part of this church.

I prayed deeply about it because, in many ways, it seemed like the logical thing to live on the west coast. My head said that, but my heart said something else. When I made the decision to come back here to Plainfield, I felt a surge of joy come over me. I was rapidly healed of the pneumonia. I realized later in retrospect that my problem had been because I was depressed due to the human reasoning as to where I should live and why I should live there. It was this false sense of substance, of my substance, that needed to yield to God and His plan and His purpose. When I did that, my body just responded naturally and normally.

So if you have a problem, something stubborn or deep rooted, you can ask yourself, “what false sense of substance am I entertaining that I need to yield to my Father?” Perhaps it is someone you feel you can’t forgive, or a deep rooted fear you haven’t faced. Bring it out in the open. Let God heal it because it is the whole transformation that is needed. This is what heals. It brings you the greatest joy and peace because you find oneness and connection with the Father.

In Mary Baker Eddy’s Hymn No. 160 she writes, “It matters not what be thy lot, So Love doth guide.” This is certainly what I found. All the human reasoning in the world doesn’t matter. It is Love that guides; Love that leads us home. It is Love that heals us.