One who is seeking freedom, and finds its coming delayed, is often tempted to question, Why am I so long in being healed? I read and study with the utmost faithfulness, do everything required of me, "pray without ceasing," yet conditions do not change; while others are quickly healed, without any apparent understanding or knowledge of Science, and seemingly without any effort on their part. This may be quite true; yet, puzzling as it seems, the fact remains that each one must walk in his own pathway and learn the lessons to be gained therein. In reply to such despondent questioning, a practitioner may often be able to point out some reasons why the patient is held, but at another time the only response to be honestly made is: "I do not know why your way is so long and hard, but I do know that good is supreme, and it must triumph over evil."
It is helpful to recall a certain scene wherein one came to the Master of us all and asked what he should do to inherit freedom, and to reflect upon the answer, given in truest love and understanding of his needs,— "Sell all that thou hast." For us this means the giving up of all belief in the reality of matter and its seeming laws ; all resentment, unforgiveness, hate, envy, greed, and an almost endless list of possessions that we, too, are loath to part with. But the imperative commandment that has come down to us through the ages still holds,—"Thou shalt have no other gods before me."
The light of past experience reveals some of the reasons in explanation of what seems retarded growth and delayed freedom. Doubt is a weighty factor in slow healing, because however clear the theory of Christian Science practice may be, there often remains a doubt, latent or otherwise, as to its efficacy. It seems so strange and intangible to one long accustomed to rely upon directly opposite methods. The belief in the power of evil, especially as manifested in sickness, seems so ingrained in some people, that while desiring to let go of it all and trust the unseen, they yet hold with grim tenacity to the old beliefs and fears. Referring to a physical ill, they are prone to say, "I must get rid of this," holding it before them as something very real, very powerful, very much to be dreaded and feared. What a sense of relaxation and relief comes with the realization of the fact that there is in reality nothing to get rid of, that "there shall no evil befall thee" as God's idea; and what a solace to know that, once awakening to the truth, one will cling to it quite as tenaciously as he formerly did to a mistaken sense of things.
