One night, I dreamed that I had lost my favorite ring. It was a special piece of jewelry to me because my dad had given it to me decades earlier and it had been in his family for nearly 100 years. So in my dream I was praying and frantically looking for it. Before I could find it, one of our cats woke me up.
My first thought was “No! I have to go back to sleep and find my ring! It’s lost.” But then I felt on my finger and, of course, my ring was still there: it had never been lost.
To find my ring, I had to be awake and realize that I had never lost my ring–not go back to sleep and work harder at praying and looking for it in the illusion of the dream.
Spiritual healing is also this way. Healing is not found by mentally staying in the mirage of life in a material body and struggling harder. Healing is found by being awake to the Truth that we are the image and likeness of God right now. I’m not talking about our mortal bodies; they’re not the image of God. But right now each one of us is actually an individual spiritual embodiment of divine Life.
We, as spiritual beings, must stay alert to Truth, God! In Isaiah it says (see 60:1), “Arise, shine; for thy light is come, and the glory of the Lord is risen upon thee.” and Mary Baker Eddy wrote in her Miscellaneous Writings 1883-1896 (See 331:29), “As mortals awake from their dream of material sensation, this adorable, all-inclusive God, and all earth’s hieroglyphics of Love, are understood; and infinite Mind is seen kindling the stars, rolling the worlds, reflecting all space and Life, – but not life in matter. Wisely governing, informing the universe, this Mind is Truth, – not laws of matter. Infinitely just, merciful, and wise, this Mind is Love, – but not fallible love.” These two citations help explain how we can see the “glory of the Lord” here and now when we are awake, or alert, to the understanding of the spiritual nature of Life.
As I found when I was awakened by our cat from my dream of the lost ring to find that my ring was never lost, we must stay alert to our spiritual inheritance as children of God in order to find that we have never been lost from divine Love’s ever-present care.