The Christian Science Journal has brought health and spirituality into the lives of individuals and families since 1883. Instructive articles and verified reports of Christian healing give the reader a working understanding of the divine Principle and practice of Christian Science. Each monthly issue also contains a worldwide directory of Christian Science practitioners, teachers, churches, Reading Rooms, organizations at universities and colleges, nurses, and Committees on Publication serving the public. 

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On intimacy  

Tenderness during a spouse's illness supports a healing.

Written for the Journal

What does it mean to be really intimate? A close, intimate relationship is one in which we feel safe and secure—able to be ourselves—and feel loved, lovable, and loving. In Soul Mates, Thomas Moore says, "In order to cultivate intimacy we need to find forms of expression that emerge from and touch the soul."¹ The results of this kind of intimacy are rich, meaningful, and mutually satisfying. Marriage provides the opportunity for such intimacy, but it doesn’t guarantee it. Books on the subject of intimacy, discussions on talk shows, and pleas from the pulpit—to say nothing of the statistics regarding divorce—point to the fact that people are searching for more fulfilling relationships, for more intimate ones.

My husband and I learned some lessons about intimacy under very difficult circumstances—circumstances that dictated the boundaries of our physical closeness and pressed us to deepen our understanding of what intimacy really is.

For over two years I suffered from a serious illness. I was eventually healed through prayer in Christian Science, as I increasingly experienced the practical results of knowing God and my relationship with Him/Her. I learned the facts of my life in God from the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. My husband and I are grateful beyond measure for this book and for the fact that my health was fully restored. In addition, we feel almost inexpressible gratitude for the entire experience, which, though extremely difficult, transformed us not only individually but as partners. Through it we gained a deeper and more intimate sense of our relationship with God, which ultimately showed us how to be more lovingly intimate with each other.

When I was ill, I had no inclination or ability for physical intimacy. My husband was very understanding, for which I was grateful. It was not easy for either of us, but our relationship was strengthened beyond what it might have been, had we not gone through this tough time together. Sometimes very late at night when I was unable to sleep, he would lie next to me and sing hymns. I would often ask him just to talk to me. He would make up little stories about nothing in particular—sweet, funny stories. We also shared confidences, appreciated each other, and prayed together.

We had read in Science and Health, "The prayer that reforms the sinner and heals the sick is an absolute faith that all things are possible to God,—a spiritual understanding of Him, an unselfed love."² So we prayed harder than we had ever prayed before to understand God’s infinite power, and how that power could be expressed in our lives.

At a point when I felt that I wasn’t far from death, the loving care my husband gave me empowered me with a stronger sense of life. He made me want to fight harder to live. He gave me more hope. Under the most difficult of circumstances, we had arrived at this wisdom: "Marriage should signify a union of hearts."³ We were truly heart to heart.

Through this experience, we were being intimately united at the deepest place within us—that place from which came our highest understanding of love. As we prayed together to understand our relationship with God, which in turn determined our ability to love and to live, it became clear that the quality of our living was directly connected to the quality of our loving. But we knew that more than human love was needed. It’s God’s love that is life-giving. No matter how close we wanted to be to each other, we saw that we needed to be close to God first. Often we simply held each other and prayed to understand God’s love for both of us. Sometimes we sang a hymn with these words from a poem by Mrs. Eddy:

Thou to whose power our hope we give,
Free us from human strife.
Fed by Thy love divine we live,
For Love alone is Life . . . .⁴

We acknowledged together who we really are as the loved children of God—entirely good and spiritual, innately healthy, naturally loving, and inseparable from God, who is Love. We were striving to understand and to live the Science of Christ, which brings out the intimate relationship each of us has with God. In doing this, we were able to truly be ourselves. We felt safe and secure in God’s love for us, and in our love for each other.

During this time my husband and I learned lessons we’ll never forget. We learned that real intimacy reaches beyond physical closeness to the actual oneness each of us has with the source of all love, God. And we learned that this intimacy with God is what makes possible a more enriching love for one another—a love that is unselfish, honest, unconditional, strong, and caring. Those lessons continue to shape our love for one another. Without a doubt, our love today is better because of this experience.

Science and Health states: "‘God is Love.’ More than this we cannot ask, higher we cannot look, farther we cannot go."⁵ My husband and I found this to be a very practical basis on which to build our own intimate relationship.

¹ Soul Mates: Honoring the Mysteries of Love and Relationship (New York: HarperCollins, 1994), p. 116.
² Science and Health, p. 1.
³ Ibid., p. 64.
⁴ Poems, p. 7.
⁵ Science and Health, p. 6.

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Healing words--"God's perfect child" by Rosemary Fuller Thornton from the September 2000 issue of the Journal.

Discovering Science and Health and Its Author by Constance L. Pierce from the August 2000 issue of the Journal.

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Heading True Northby Kim Shippey from the May 2000 issue of the Journal.

Nurture children through seeing what the Father does by Channing Walker from the April 2000 issue of the Journal.

Healing the "Incurable" by Janet Heiniman Clements from the March 2000 issue of the Journal.

Abolishing mental slavery by Nathan A. Talbot from the February 2000 issue of the Journal.

Spiritual momentum and the unfolding good of the true millennium by William E. Moody from the January 2000 issue of the Journal.

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