"KAREN PROVES LOVE'S CARE" (For children)

On the first day of school, Karen lost her new blue purse. When she went home, she
told her mother all the places she had looked without finding her purse.

Karen had proved several times before that nothing is ever lost in divine Mind. But
she was so upset about her pretty blue purse that she began to cry.

"If I knew just where I lost it," Karen said to her mother, "I could tell God to take care
of it for me until I could find it!" Just then an angel thought came to Karen. "But I don't
have to tell God, do I?" she asked aloud. "God is everywhere, taking care of the whole
world!"

As a Christian Scientist, Karen knew that God, Mind, is omnipresent, which means that
He is everywhere at all times, in control of His perfect spiritual creation. Still, it was
hard for Karen to picture God as being able to keep up with such a small thing as her
blue purse.

Karen asked her mother to read some passages from the Bible and from Science and
Health by Mrs. Eddy. Karen and her mother always studied these books when they
needed to prove that error is unreal.

In the Bible they read: "Behold the fowls of the air: for they sow not, neither do they
reap, nor gather into barns; yet your heavenly Father feedeth them. Are ye not much
better than they?" (Matthew 6:26)

As Karen listened, she remembered that when Christ Jesus spoke these words
centuries ago, he was telling all mankind that God's tender love and care for His
children can always be counted on and that it never fails.

She remembered stories she had been told about Bible characters who had been in all
sorts of trouble but who had been rescued from their troubles by trusting in God's care.
Karen told herself that she too would have to trust God. She would have to stop
worrying about her blue purse and know that God was watching over her just as He
watched over the fowls of the air.

Her mother then read from Science and Health, "Divine Love always has met and
always will meet every human need." (pg. 494)

"Well," Karen thought, "I need my blue purse very much to hold my lunch money,
pencils, handkerchief, and my comb. So divine Love will meet my need."

After that, Karen felt so much happier that she declared, "Now I know that God is
taking care of me, and He'll bring my purse back to me!"

The next afternoon when Karen came in from school, she was waving her blue purse.
She told her mother: "When I was walking toward the bus stop this morning, a car
stopped at the curb. A man got out and handed me my blue purse. He asked me if I
knew the little girl who had lost it on the street the day before. I told him that "I" was
the little girl; and he was very glad!"

Karen was pleased to have her pretty blue purse back again. But she was even
happier because she had learned that divine Love cares for each of us and meets our
every need and that we can never lose anything good."

(Originally printed in July 9, 1966 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel)


"BOB LEARNS HOW CHRISTIAN SCIENCE HEALS"

The first time Bob attended a Christian Science Sunday School, the teacher read to
the class from the first chapter of Genesis (verse 31), "God saw everything that he
had made, and, behold, it was very good."

She explained that this referred to the scientific creation -- the only creation -- and
that because God has created only good, there is no evil. Whatever seems to be evil,
she added, is error, an illusion. She then gave the class several examples of illusions,
such as mirages in the deserts and railroad tracks that seem to come to a point in the
distance.

Bob didn't understand all of this, but his teacher pointed out that it is important for
Christian Scientists to understand this clearly because it enables them to heal them-
selves and others, and it helps them to worship God, Spirit, more completely. She
also explained that it was the unshakable knowledge of God's good and perfect
universe that enabled Christ Jesus to heal the errors, the sin, disease, and death, of
those around him.

About a year after this, Bob noticed three small warts on one of his forearms. He
declared some of the truths that he had been taught, but several more warts appeared.
He told his mother about them, and she lovingly realized that he was already the
perfect child of God without any error or blemish, as Christian Science reveals.

Each morning Bob's mother read to her family a portion of the Lesson-Sermon, given
in the Christian Science Quarterly, but sometimes Bob would not be listening. He
would think about the school day ahead or about meeting his friends. His mother
urged him to pay close attention to the lesson, so Bob tried; but he felt as if he had
heard all those things many times before.

Bob expected the warts to vanish as had other errors when his mother had helped
him, but more appeared. It was wintertime then; so Bob was able to hide the
unsightly condition under his long-sleeved shirts. His mother and friends couldn't see
the warts, and sometimes he forgot about them.

When spring came, Bob's mother began to put away his long-sleeved shirts. It was
then that Bob confessed that he didn't want to wear his short-sleeved shirts because
his friends at school might tease him. With a sigh he added, "I've got forty-one warts
now."

Quietly, Bob's mother said: "You don't have any, Bob. Forty-one warts are no more
real than one. They are all illusions. It's time you stopped believing in error and
started rejoicing in the truth of God's perfect creation."

Bob was now ready and willing to listen to Truth, even to things that he had heard
many times before. His mother read from Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy (p. 411),
"Disease is always induced by a false sense mentally entertained, not destroyed."
Bob could see that he had certainly entertained error this time and had not destroyed
it.

His mother also read the question, "What is man?" on page 475 of the same book, and
the answer that Mrs. Eddy gives. This answer includes these statements: "Man is
spiritual and perfect; and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood
in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique." Bob did
not grasp the full meaning of the words that were read, but he said thoughtfully: "Well,
if I'm a spiritual idea, then I can't have any matter. And if I don't have any matter, then
I don't have any warts!"

Later, he went to bed and read a few pages from his own copy of Science and Health.
He did this several nights in a row. In fact, he became so interested in reading of God
and His spiritual idea, man, that he completely forgot about the error that had worried
him so much. Without realizing it, he also began wearing his short-sleeved shirts, and
no one noticed the erroneous condition.

One evening, about a week after he had begun to read the textbook, while the family
was at the dinner table, Bob's little sister exclaimed, "Hey, everyone, look at Bob's
arm!" Bob glanced down at his arm. To his amazement his skin was entirely smooth,
without a single ugly wart. There wasn't even a trace of where the warts had been.

Bob's mother and father will never forget the glow on Bob's face when he discovered
that he had been completely healed. Bob will never forget the joy of this healing,
because it was the first one he'd had through his own effort to understand God better.
"Now," he declared, "I know how Christian Science heals!"

(Originally printed in March 6, 1965 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel)

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