"I will open my hands..."

"I believe in a peace
that flows deeper than pain.
That the broken find healing in love.
Pain is no measure of his faithfulness.
He withholds no good thing from us,
no good thing thing from us.
I will open my hands,
I will open my heart."

I've been thinking about the insidious nature of pain this week. How loudly it screams, and how it tries to convince us that it resides within us, and therefore must be our pain. But it's not.

Pain, disease, fear, poverty, sorrow are never ours. They are impersonal. They only try to parrot, or mimic, the impartial and universal nature of God's goodness, healing, and peace, that Sara Groves' sings about in her new recording, "Open My Hands."

This week, as I've prayed deeply about the power of peace, and the impotence of pain, two experiences, in particular, have been constant reminders that I can rest my case on the law of Love. That precedence has already been established, cited, and ruled admissible in the court of Spirit. And that finding freedom from pain's unjust sentence is man's inalienable right...right here, and right now.

I return to the power, and authority, of these experience, as shared in: "Screaming has no authority..." (from October of 2006), and "Turn the beat around..." (from July of 2010), more often than you might think.

I know that I've often felt helpless in the face of pain, but Mary Baker Eddy has provided me a lifeline, in those moments of darkness, when she says in her writings, Miscellaneous Writings, 1883 - 1896 and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:

"No evidence before the material senses
can close my eyes
to the scientific proof
that God, good, is supreme."

and

"Evil is not supreme; good is not helpless;
nor are the so-called laws of matter primary,
and the law of Spirit secondary."

What promises! Pain [evil] is not supreme, and good is not helpless. Quite the opposite. Good is supreme, and therefore pain is helpless in its presence...in the sovereignty of peace. Peace is not the absence of pain. Peace is not an absence. Peace is a presence. Peace is not found in the vacuity of pain's retreat. Peace is substantial. Peace is a power. Peace is self-assertive and confident. Peace has authority, and pain flees before its strength...as naturally as darkness flees before the light of day.

In the final stanza of her poem, "The New Century", Eddy assures us that:

"The dark domain of pain and sin
Surrenders — Love doth enter in,
And peace is won, and lost is vice:
Right reigns, and blood was not its price.."

Pain can often feel like a vice...racheting a tighter and tighter hold on our freedom, but Love comes in, and pain surrenders, fleeing from the authority of God's law....the law of impartial and universal goodness that is irrespective of person. Love, unburdened by the false fears of human thought-taking and self-determinism...of what we could of done, thought...even prayed...differently. Peace isn't waiting for us to think the right thought. Peace is the voice of Love speaking to human hearts, minds, and bodies...a tuning fork that realigns everything according to His purpose for us.

Just as pain is not a personal failing or weakness, peace is not a personal achievement. Peace is God's impartial and universal substance. It constitutes every mental molecule of our being, and we can no more be denied its power in our lives, than we can do something to suddenly make light retreat in the face of darkness.

It's a promise...it's the Law.

of Love...
Kate