Sorrow Not the Master of Joy

Mary Baker Eddy has written, “This is the doctrine of Christian Science: that divine Love cannot be deprived of its manifestation, or object; that joy cannot be turned into sorrow, for sorrow is not the master of joy; that good can never produce evil; that matter can never produce mind nor life result in death.” (S&H)

When we learn that Life is eternal and indestructible, the hopelessness of sorrow disappears. Sorrow and grief result from the belief that we are lacking some form of good. This is a false, limited sense of good, and its antidote is the fact that since God is infinite, good is eternal and ever present.

As we gain the true sense of existence — that God is infinite Love and can never be absent; that man is the offspring of divine Love, coexistent and coeternal with God; that man is forever in his rightful place, his life eternally “hid with Christ in God,” where no slightest phase of error can ever penetrate; that evil, error, whatever its claim, is wholly unreal and powerless to harm or to deprive us of any form of good — such understanding cannot fail to turn sorrow and grief into gladness and rejoicing, even to shut out the seeming enemies to joy so completely that sorrow may never enter.

Knowledge of God is a sure protection from the shadows of sorrow that would attend the seeming departure of a dear one. God’s bounty of good is never lessened or depleted, and the expression of good necessary to our happiness can never be taken away. The channels of Love are never closed; God’s goodness is forever. With this understanding firmly grasped, we may prove our Leader’s words that, indeed, sorrow is never the master of joy.