Preteens

By Jenny Sawyer

From the March 28, 2016 issue of The Christian Science Sentinel

When I was little, I didn’t like climbing into my bed if my room was already dark. I had to take a flying leap to make sure that any monsters underneath didn’t grab my ankles.

And once I was on my bed, I had to get tucked in in three … two … ONE! seconds, just to be sure I was safe.

Lots of people told me there weren’t any monsters. My parents. My babysitter. Even one of my friends who was a few years older than I was. But I was still scared. And that fear seemed pretty big and believable.

Then one night I thought: I can pray! I’d learned in the Christian Science Sunday School that God, Love, fills all space. There isn’t any place—even under my bed—that isn’t filled with Love.

So what about the monsters?

Well, since Love is here and there and everywhere, there’s no room for anything bad. Not one single monster, big or small. So the idea that there was anything in my room that could hurt me was nothing more than a mistake, an error.

How do you correct a mistake? By knowing what’s true. And that’s what I did. The more I stuck with the fact, the truth, that Love was All, the less afraid I felt. Soon, I didn’t have to take a flying leap. I didn’t have to scramble under the covers to be safe. The fear was gone.

The Bible has an interesting name for the things in our lives that make us afraid. If you look in the book of Revelation, you’ll find it. It’s “the great red dragon” (see Revelation 12).

A dragon! That name might make the scary things sound even scarier. But wait. Look at the way Mary Baker Eddy explains the dragon in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “The great red dragon symbolizes a lie …” (p. 563). That’s right. This awful, threatening thing, this “monster,” is nothing more than a big, fat lie. If it’s a dragon, then it must be made up—like those monsters under my bed.

Now, just like in my experience with my own “monsters,” sometimes bad things can look or feel pretty scary. For example, a bully could be a type of dragon. So could sickness, or a powerful storm.What can you do then?

That’s when it’s time to be a dragon slayer!

To slay the dragon, all you need to do is know what’s true. Truth always wipes out a lie. It’s powerful and dependable. And Truth is another name for God, so being a dragon slayer means sticking with what you know about God. Knowing how pure and good and all-powerful God is makes that dragon shrink down into something that isn’t scary anymore. In fact, when you feel the presence of Love, or when you understand the almighty strength of Spirit, that dragon vanishes completely. That’s when you get to say, “I’m healed!”

Really, that’s what it means to be a dragon slayer. It means facing down every scary or painful thing by praying and feeling God’s power and presence. And when you do that, you realize something really cool: Being a dragon slayer actually means being a healer. Which is exactly what you are any time you meet—and beat—a dragon.

 Find more articles for preteens at JSH-Online.