In the experience of the Christian Science practitioner the question is sometimes asked of him, "Others' are instantaneously healed; why is my healing slow?" The reply of one practitioner is, "Let us look into this and find the mental condition requisite for quick healing." By way of illustration one specific instance may be cited. A woman of forty years, when in a dying condition, was instantaneously healed through the word uttered by a Christian Scientist who talked with her not more than five minutes. The invalid had been a frail child whose parents had at times despaired of her growing to womanhood, and upon looking closely into this case it would appear that the desire for healing began, when as a child she stood at the window watching other children at play; for she recalls that at such times her thoughts ran thus: "If God made all the little children, why did He make some sick and others well?"
The belief was held, by this child that God was a large man, and in times of dire distress after unavailing prayer the cry for help would close with the thought, "I wish God were not so large; it must be that I am down at. His feet and that is why He does not hear me." One summer day when standing beneath a huge oak tree, looking up into the towering green branches, the thought came, "God must be Up there;" and the lisping baby tongue softly called, and then with bated breath the child listened for the reply. God always answers His children when they call, and her ear became attuned to His voice when, after the wilderness and the Red Sea, the voice of Truth, imparted through the practitioner, was beard.
As this child grew into girlhood and young womanhood there was ever the sense of pain and weakness; and at all too frequent intervals sickness laid her low; but through it all there was the daily reading of the Bible, which her dear mother insisted upon, and the love of the Sunday school and the church services, and at times there were spiritual experiences when God seemed very near. Later came her marriage, and children were born; and when she saw, as she ignorantly believed, that the little ones had inherited her frail constitution instead of the father's' robust physique, rebellion ruled her heart, and she was wont to cry, "Is there no God at all?"
