Christian Science – Page 28 – Spirituality & Healing

Reblog: Grateful teens

Published on November 15, 2012 by lindseybiggs1 Comment

It’s not about the money.

A recent study focused on the effect of gratitude on teenagers. There are a lot of reasons teens are grateful. And being rich isn’t necessarily one of them. Similarly, there are plenty of reasons teens might act as if they had a gratitude deficit. Being poor doesn’t necessarily seem to be one of them.

The study suggests that regardless of a teenager’s socioeconomic background, he or she can experience the benefits of a grateful heart, including the benefit of better mental health. Through a few changes in outlook, attitude, and behavior, he or she can make big gains on the gratitude front. Teens who are the most grateful find a number of benefits multiplying. Such as? Things like improved academic performance, a sense of purpose, more hope, and more happiness. As these take root, they grow more common to a teen’s outlook and more natural to his or her life. On the flip side, things like hopelessness or depression – which are at times linked to suicide in teens – grow less prevalent. Read more

What is your identity?

Published on October 29, 2012 by lindseybiggs1 Comment

IMG_0077 copy — Some might say these are unlikely friends.

Recently, a friend shared how she was praised at church while serving in a particular capacity. The praise was given by a fellow church member. Knowing both of these individuals, I admired their ongoing friendship and the way they appreciate the God-given qualities in one another such as integrity, dependability, honesty, forthrightness, compassion, and care. These individuals have served in church together for many years.

If I look at just the material surface of things, I might wonder how these individuals could be friends since they are so different: you could say one is a conservative, upper-class man while the other a liberal, middle-class lesbian.

How can these two different individuals serve together for decades in church and share a friendship that dives so much deeper than a material sense of things? By truly appreciating one another as God’s child – as brothers and sisters of the one Father-Mother God.

“…man is not material; he is spiritual”, wrote Mary Baker Eddy (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 468). If our identity is spiritual, that means it isn’t made of anything temporal (or temporary). We are made of God’s thoughts, ideas and qualities. This certainly makes me want to get to know who and what God is, so that I can know who and what we are – what we are made of.

“God’s being is infinity, freedom, harmony, and boundless bliss.” (Ibid, 481)

“God is incorporeal, divine, supreme, infinite Mind, Spirit, Soul, Principle, Life, Truth, Love.” (Ibid, 465)

Meditating on each these synonyms and attributes for God gives us a greater understanding of who God is; and it tells us about what we are made of since we are made in God’s image and likeness. It also reveals how our human relationships can transcend material confines and be harmonious, united and long-lasting.

Reblog: Reader Responses to ‘The Present Heaven’

Published on October 23, 2012October 23, 2012 by lindseybiggsLeave a comment

In this blog post, beautiful experiences are shared of becoming conscious of our spiritual being here and now (and at a time when it was needed most).