by Rev. Marla Sanderson
Last weekend I had a chance to take my own advice from last month’s column, “If It’s the Truth, I’m Sticking to It.”
A quick review: When faced with a fact, we either create the next event based on Truth or on fiction.
Truth involves ideas like Wisdom, Love, Intelligence, Abundance, Infinite Creativity, Power, etc. Any alignment with the Divine will do. I like to use Divine Order or Divine Right Action as well. So when we employ these principles, we are aligning with Truth. When we’ve stated our Truth, we usually end with “And so it is!”
Fiction is the downward mental spin that happens when we feast on all the complications and possible things that can go wrong. Often combined with worry, our thoughts, which are always creative, become negative and the outcomes less than optimal—even dramatic.
On with my story:
Gregg and I were scheduled for an event in Sarasota, FL, about 60 miles from home. I’d been struggling with some kind of flu-thing and coughing a lot, but felt pressed to go ahead and do the job I’d committed to do. I thought a cough suppressant would be a good idea, and decided to stop at the next drug store to get something.
About three miles from the destination hotel, we stopped at a drug store and I ran in to get the cough drops.
When I came out, the car wouldn’t start. Even though we’d had no sign of a problem before this, it appeared the battery was completely dead. A few expletives later, we were rifling through the glove compartment looking for the phone number for our emergency road service.
I resisted the urge to mentally indulge in the details of our awkward situation: We were far from home, needed to get to the event, and get home afterward. And how would we fix the car? It was a Saturday night, and it was unlikely the drug store would want us to leave the car in their parking lot ‘til the repair shops opened on Monday. And where would we stay? This was all too much! So, no—I didn’t go down that road in my mind.
As Gregg discovered the road service phone number, I said, “I’m going to do a treatment.”
A Spiritual Mind Treatment is a particular form of prayer we do in Science of Mind—and it relies on our alignment with Truth—never fiction. I closed my eyes and declared that Divine Timing was operating in this situation and Divine Right Action was taking place. I probably embellished a bit with a few flowery words, but that’s the heart of it.
As I declared “And So It Is!” I heard Gregg laughing. There was a lot of “wow” in his tone as he finished the call with the road service people. Turns out, the fellow they were sending out was sitting at the same corner as the drug store and he could see us in the parking lot!
In two minutes we were out of there and on our merry way to our destination. This time the exclamations were, “Thank you, God!” and “Can you believe that????”
Feeling as good as we did, we were confident we wouldn’t have any further trouble getting home that night. And we didn’t. At 10:30, we started up the car and drove home like nothing had ever happened. The next day, the battery was dead. Yes, it was a fact, and we replaced it without further incident.
The lesson? We don’t need to wait ‘til the worst has happened to turn our attention to the Divine for an answer. If we deal with it the very instant a scary fact flies in our face, we open the way to a solution that’s better than we could imagine.
And so it is!
Rev. Marla Sanderson has been a student of spiritual practice for more than 35 years. She began as Assistant Director of The Next Step, a psychic and spiritual community in a New Mexico ghost town. She’s been a workshop leader, teacher, practitioner, and minister of Living Love, and the Science of Mind. She recently founded the New Thought Global Network, a virtual “church” that offers inspiration anytime, from anywhere. The site showcases many powerful Science of Mind and New Thought speakers and writers, and intends to expand these teachings to the world. Check it out at www.newthoughtglobal.org.