Category Archives: inspiration

Love Has Been Preparing Us

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Mary Baker Eddy wrote in Science and Health (p. 107): “God had been graciously preparing me during many years for the reception of this final revelation of the absolute divine Principle of scientific mental healing.”

What did this “gracious” preparation look like? Well, let’s see… she was widowed at the age of 22, when she was pregnant with her only child. Her son was taken from her when he was four and she didn’t see him again until he was grown. Her second husband was a philanderer and they divorced. She suffered from debilitating illness from an early age. And at the age of 45 she slipped on an icy sidewalk and was so severely injured the doctor declared she was dying.

Maybe God has been “graciously preparing” all of us for what we’re facing now. Think back to all the challenges you’ve faced – the times you were terrified, the times when things seemed hopeless – and then remember the Father-Mother Love that brought you through. Remember the healings. “Hold fast to that which is good.” (Thessalonians 5:21).

I think Love has been preparing all of us – each in our own way, each with our own lessons, giving each of us our own gifts to use right now.

There Was Another Time When I Was Terrified

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There was another time – almost exactly eight years ago now – when I was terrified and felt like I was facing challenges impossible to overcome. Both my parents were in the hospital – Mom on one floor, Dad on the floor above her. I’d just learned that Mom was not going to be allowed to return to her retirement community apartment because they couldn’t provide the medical care she’d need. I had made calls to assisted living places and to offices that provided in-home nursing care and learned that the cost of my mom’s care – combined with care for Dad – would cost $8000 or more a month. Their savings might buy them a couple months, but then I might need to get into my own retirement savings to care for them.

And beyond the money terror, I was feeling a deep grief. Mom was dying. My sweet mama was dying. No one would ever love me like Mom loved me, or know me as she had known me. I remember sobbing with hopelessness.

I talked with my husband about our options, and he supported me in my decision to have Mom brought to our home. He agreed to help me care for her. The social workers at the hospital were concerned for me – they kept asking me if this is what I really wanted to do, and I said yes. I didn’t know how we were going to do this – my husband and I were both working full-time then, and I wasn’t sure when we were going to actually be able to sleep. But I knew it was the right thing to do. I felt Love leading me to make this decision for Mom.

Mom was brought by ambulance to my home on President’s Day eight years ago. A hospice nurse from Hospice Northwest came to show Scott and me how to care for Mom. We weren’t sure how long we’d have with her – I think we were told she wasn’t expected to live more than six months – but… I picked up on the signs from the hospice nurse as she examined Mom that we probably didn’t have that long.

Mom and I spent the whole afternoon telling each other how much we loved each other. Mom – who’d always been one of the bravest people I’d ever known – was scared. I can’t remember any other time when I’d seen her scared. She asked me, “What happens when I die? Will I see you again?” And I told her that nothing could separate us from the love we have for each other. Love doesn’t die. I assured her we’d meet again. She nodded her head and seemed to accept my words as the truth. Later, as it got hard for her to speak, I asked her one more time if she loved me – I was greedy. And she looked at me with such intensity – her eyes on mine filled with love – and nodded her head. I will never forget that look in her eyes. I carry it with me still, and it reassures me.

That night I slept on the couch by her hospital bed. I had this beautiful dream full of butterflies and green fields and felt this sense of joy and peace and love brush by me. When I woke from this dream I realized Mom wasn’t struggling to breathe and I thought, “Oh, she’s okay. I don’t need to give her any medication right now.” And I closed my eyes to go back to sleep, and then I realized… I got out of bed and felt my mama, and she was cool. I went upstairs to tell Scott I thought she had passed, but I wasn’t sure. Scott came downstairs and felt her pulse, and said, “Moz is gone, Sweetie.”

The hospice nurse came and walked us through what we needed to do. I’ll always be grateful for our hospice nurses.

But now my thoughts turned to Dad – he was soon to be released from the hospital and I still didn’t know how we were going to give him the care he needed. He was 98 then and suffering from a kind of dementia – and I didn’t feel equipped with the skills to help him. I prayed. I prayed desperate prayers, and I went for a walk to try to find some peace. As I was walking, a rainbow suddenly arched over the field I was passing, and I felt Mom with me.

The social workers at the hospital asked me if I’d ever looked into adult family homes, and gave me a pamphlet with phone numbers. On the second call I felt I’d found the right place for Dad and when my brother and I stopped by to check it out we saw bird feeders and dogs and cats – and we knew Mom would have loved the woman who answered the door. Again, I felt Mom’s presence with us. We’d found the right place for Dad – and within his budget, too!

I learned something from that experience. The answers are always there – even when things seem impossible. I hadn’t know that adult family home even existed the day before – and now here it was! Just waiting for Dad! Love had this place waiting for him!

Dad lived another three years and the people in his adult family home became like family to us. They are still very dear to me.

And I still feel Mom and Dad with me. We’ve never been separated. Nothing can separate us from Love. We’re connected by Love, forever and ever. Amen.

Cosmic Community: Celebrating Kindness

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I have a new book “out there.” It’s the third book in the Cosmic Celebrations series – Cosmic Community: Celebrating Kindness.

I apologize that it’s only available on Amazon right now (and please do not order it on February 28th).

Here’s the opening to Cosmic Community:

December 6, 2023

This morning I felt impelled to get out of the house and go for a drive. I ended up at the mall in Bellingham with the vague idea that I might go Christmas shopping.

As I headed into Macy’s a young woman approached me – she looked scared. She said her baby was locked in the car with her keys and she asked me if I could let security know. I went into Macy’s and let the customer service people know the situation.

They needed to know the model of the car and where it was parked, so I went back out and asked the young mother if I could watch her car and baby while she went inside to talk to the customer service people. She thanked me and I took up my post by her car.

When I looked in the window I saw her baby was crying – so I said, “Hi Sweetie! I’m right here with you!” and she started giggling then and smiling at me. There was a little toy suction cupped to the window and the baby reached up and started playing with the toy – like she was playing with me – and we spent the next minute or so laughing at her toy together.

The baby’s mom came out then, and pretty soon folks in uniforms joined her at her car to help her.

And the thought occurred to me that maybe that was the whole reason I’d felt like I’d needed to drive and ended up at the mall – I hardly ever go there, and it was weird for me to decide to go there today.

I bought a red vest and a new pair of jeans and then started my drive home.

And the clouds and the rain and the gray evening light enveloped me in a peaceful bubble. I’d put in a CD of hymns sung by a pair of young brothers with a youthful energy, and as I listened to the hymns I thought of my mom and remembered all the times she’d sung those hymns to me. I could feel her love with me.

As I drove through the Chuckanut Hills, I thought of the hikes I’d taken with Dad and felt his love, too. And then I remembered driving this same route when I was bringing the sons home from swimming lessons when they were preschoolers, and I could almost hear them laughing with each other in the back seat. It seemed a lifetime ago, and just like yesterday.

The young men on the CD sang, “He leadeth me, O blessed thought! O words with heav’nly comfort fraught…” (words by Joseph H. Gilmore). And suddenly I felt myself connected to all the other people in the cars moving with me on I-5. And for a moment our kinship with each other was so clear to me. I felt us all moving together in a cosmic murmuration. Normally I try to exit onto the backroads, but I found myself passing the exit I might normally have taken and I realized I WANTED to be with the other folks on I-5.

My drive home was other-worldly and beautiful.

“I’m Right Here.”

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I woke up at 2:00 in the morning, feeling scared for the world. I went downstairs to commune with the Cosmos and the cats. Sparky cat settled onto the sofa next to me, and blinked his reassurance. I heard Love say, “I’m right here.”

I went back to bed to sleep a little more, and when I got up I drove up to Fairhaven for my walk on the boardwalk. I haven’t been there for a week and I’ve really missed it. But it seemed empty when I got there – almost like a ghost town. I wondered if maybe the cold was keeping people away, or maybe we aren’t getting as many Canadian visitors as we normally do. It was kind of weird. But then a young woman carrying a cup of coffee smiled at me, and I heard Love say to me, “I’m right here with you.”

I took the boardwalk down to the coffee shop in Boulevard Park and ordered a mocha. I sat on my favorite high chair and swung my legs back and forth while I sipped my drink and toodled around on my phone and watched people. When I left the shop, the baristas called out, “Have a good day!” I thanked them, and then called back, “You, too!” They laughed and nodded their heads. And Love said, “I’m still here.”

Going back on the boardwalk towards Fairhaven was warmer – my back was against the wind. I saw a man coming my direction turn around and walk backwards, and I smiled at him and said, “That’s better, isn’t it?” He grinned and nodded and said it was great exercise to walk backwards, and it was also a lot warmer.

A sweet pup named Remi approached me for a scratch behind the ears. He looked like he was hobbling a little and his human explained that he’d just been through two surgeries – one for his hip and another for his back. She said he’d been paralyzed at some point. But here he was – walking! I told Remi’s human that I was glad he had her, and she said she was glad she had him.

And Love said, “I’m right here.”

I had already decided I was going to treat myself to a breakfast at the Colophon. I hoped I’d get my favorite seat in the corner – but I’d take whatever I was offered. I also hoped Taryn would be there – she always makes me smile.

The hostess recognized me and welcomed me in. She asked me if I’d like my favorite seat in the corner! Then Taryn appeared – she was going to be my server! And THEN – when I got situated in my corner seat, the Four Tops came on the background music channel, singing, “I’ll be there…” and I started cracking up.

I love when the Cosmos has fun with me.

It Ain’t Easy

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Okay. Here’s my current struggle: I’m trying to keep my wall kind and joyful; I’m also trying to be an ally to those in need of allies right now; I’m trying to nurture the good in people and trying not to feed what’s bad (and this includes myself); I’m trying to trust in Good – trying to trust that my fellow humans have the wisdom and courage to see and do what’s right and decent even when the odds are against them. And when I bring all of this to my wall it looks like a hodgpodge patchwork of swans and smiling pups, political insanity and heroism, frustration, anger, Christopher Walken and Borowitz. It’s a little messy right now.

I apologize. I’m trying to bring order out of chaos here and it ain’t easy.

If nothing else, please know this: I love you. I honor the good in you. The world needs all the good you have to bring to it right now.

Before the Sun Rises…

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In the stillness before the sun rises –
before the wordle and strand games;
the Facebook feed and the “breaking news” –
I give myself a moment to hear only You.
I feel Your love with me right now and here,
enveloping me in the assurance
that we are dear to You and we don’t need to fear
whatever may come.
We are One
in Love.
-Karen Molenaar Terrell

Note to a Friend

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Note to a friend:

I know that God loves you no less than She loves me. I know that God loves all of Her children without limit. And I trust that She is continually leading and guiding each of us down our own paths in life, with our own lessons waiting for us – and it’s not my business to decide how you should think or feel or be. But it IS my business to follow God’s direction in my own life – and that includes taking a stand for what I know is honest and right, and confronting evil when I see it.

In love, Karen

A Healing

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A few weeks ago I woke up with an itchy rash and welts on my head and neck, and going down my back. Concerned I might have something contagious, and not wanting to put my husband at risk, I drove myself to the local urgent care the next day, praying all the way to know that Love went before me.

The first cool thing that happened was that they didn’t make me get on a scale. The next cool thing that happened was that I was assured my blood pressure was fine (I always kind of freak out when I go to doctors, and I expected my b.p. to be through the roof). The third cool thing that happened was that the doctor told me I didn’t seem to have anything contagious. She said, though, that she could give me an antihistamine or a steroid – but I told her no, I was good – as long as I wasn’t going to cause harm to anyone else, I was fine. (Everyone was very kind and calm at the Urgent Care and I really appreciated that.)

When I got home, I called a local Christian Science practitioner/teacher for her prayerful support. And she was wonderful! I felt her loving support instantly! She sent me to various articles and podcasts for inspiration – that was really helpful to me. She sent me to an excellent podcast with Mark Swinney, a Cristian Science practitioner and teacher. And she invited me to join her branch church’s Wednesday night testimony meeting via zoom.

One of the last passages the reader read at the Wednesday night meeting was Mary Baker Eddy’s interpretation of the 23rd Psalm, and I felt healing come with this line: “Love anointeth my head with oil; my cup runneth over.” I could just feel God’s love pouring over my head, soothing and comforting. I just wrapped myself all up in Love’s love.

When I woke up the next morning I was healed.

Just When I Begin to Sink into Despair…

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Just when I begin to sink into despair, something happens that fills me all up with joy and hope. It’s only noon, and already my day has been filled with Good, with the recognition that nothing – absolutely NOTHING – can stop Love from reaching us and blessing us.

A really remarkable thing happened this morning right after I got myself out of bed and dressed. (I had considered just staying there for another hour or two – but this voice told me to get up – that something good was coming!) There was a knock on the door and Scott went to answer it. I heard him talking to a woman, and then I heard him ask the woman if she wanted to talk to me.

I went to the door and saw one of my former eighth graders standing there! Diana had been in my first class of eighth graders in Burlington – back in 1992! I hadn’t seen her for maybe twenty or thirty years! She told me that she’s living in Minnesota now, but she’s home to visit her mom, and she just had to stop in and see me.

And pretty soon we were hugging and crying and it was such a beautiful coming together that my heart just filled up with joy. Diana told me that she’d been wanting to write me, but the words just never came, so she’d decided to talk to me in the person. She told me that her eighth grade year with me had been the most important year in her life and it had stayed with her. She said I’d made a difference in her life – that I’d treated all of my students like I was their mother, and I’d nurtured them like they were my children. She said she’d never had that from a teacher before and it had meant something to her, and she wanted me to know that.

She remembered at the beginning of the school year when I’d invited all the parents and students in to meet me how I’d walked around with my baby (he would have been about nine months then) on my back, and how he’d burped up baby stuff on my shoulder, and how I’d laughed about it. She said she’d never met another teacher like me before. 😃

Diana was a gift from the Cosmos this morning. The love in our space was palpable.

“Despair not; for Love IS with thee.”

Staying Sane, While Staying Informed (Revisited)

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I originally published this post in 2012, but I found myself revisiting it this morning.

…those who discern Christian Science will hold crime in check. They will aid in the ejection of error. They will maintain law and order, and cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate perfection. – Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, p. 97

***

A friend posted a great cartoon (by David Sippress) on Facebook the other day. It shows a man and woman walking down the street, and the woman is saying: “My desire to be well-informed is currently at odds with my desire to remain sane.”

I can really relate to this cartoon.

The desire to be a responsible and contributing citizen means that I want to be aware of, and informed about, the challenges my nation faces. But how does one stay informed about these challenges, without feeling overwhelmed by them? Sometimes the fear and hate that seem to permeate our atmosphere can seem impossible to overcome, and I find myself getting pulled inexorably into the brouhaha. I see inequity and unfairness, hypocrisy and bigotry, and it makes me really angry. And the angrier I get the more real and powerful the inequity and bigotry seem to me, and the less powerful I feel in being able to make anything better.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes: “We may well be astonished at sin, sickness, and death. We may well be perplexed at human fear; and still more astounded at hatred, which lifts its hydra head, showing its horns in the many inventions of evil. But why should we stand aghast at nothingness?” (p. 563)

I can imagine someone reading this quote by Mary Baker Eddy and shaking his head, wondering how anyone can write off all the hate and fear as “nothing.” And I can imagine someone reading this quote and comparing Christian Scientists to those three monkeys who “see no evil, hear no evil, and speak no evil.” But that’s not what Christian Science is about at all.

Eddy writes: “Expose and denounce the claims of evil and disease in all their forms, but realize no reality in them. A sinner is not reformed merely by assuring him that he cannot be a sinner because there is no sin. To put down the claim of sin, you must detect it, remove the mask, point out the illusion, and thus get the victory over sin and so prove its unreality.” (Science and Health, p. 447.)

Note that when Mary Baker Eddy writes about exposing evil and removing its mask, nowhere does she say we do this in a spirit of anger.  In fact, earlier in Science and Health, she writes, “The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of Love.” (Science and Health, p. 201.)

I believe our purpose here is to love – love is what gives meaning to life. And so it doesn’t really make any sense for me to be angry about anger, or to be unkind in the name of kindness, or to feel hate about those who hate – because anger, hate, and unkindness defeat the whole purpose of it all.

I really like the thoughts Kathi Petersen, a spiritually-minded friend from Nova Scotia, sent me earlier this week: “Is there something wrong with wanting to concentrate your mind and energy on positive things? Are we shirking our responsibilities somehow, not being actively embroiled with the downward tendency of our society? Does it somehow help the planet if we spend our days alarmed and shouting about what is going on? I feel so much that the opposite is true … That what the world needs most is people who can spread some Joy … Maybe every village needs its Joy-spreaders, and we should be given some kind of stipend to concentrate on good and happy things …”

Isn’t that a wonderful idea?!

I want to be one of the Joy-spreaders. I want to completely overpower the feelings of gloom and doom, of hopelessness and anger and fear and hate, with joy and good cheer and love.

I started off this blog with a quote by Mary Baker Eddy. The one word that stands out to me, as I reread it, is the word cheerfully.  She tells us that Christian Scientists will “aid in the ejection of error” and “cheerfully await the certainty of ultimate perfection.” Isn’t it great that we don’t need to give up our joy to overcome evil? In fact, maybe the only way we can overcome evil is with joy and love.

***

At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good. – Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, p. 571.

The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable. – Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, p. 192.