In her book "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, gives us the comforting assurance (pp. 149, 150): "Remember, thou canst be brought into no condition, be it ever so severe, where Love has not been before thee and where its tender lesson is not awaiting thee. Therefore despair not nor murmur, for that which seeketh to save, to heal, and to deliver, will guide thee, if thou seekest this guidance." I am humbly grateful for the tender lessons and the guidance which Love revealed in the following experience.
Two years ago our son manifested the symptoms of polio. Help was immediately sought of a consecrated Christian Science practitioner, and in ten days the child was well. However, I was unable to keep my thought free from the physical evidence we had seen. Fear, confusion, and resentment opened the door of my thinking to the aggressive suggestions of the disease, and the child became ill again. I called the practitioner early one morning and told her that the situation was most alarming and that it looked as if we might lose the child at any moment. Fear seemed to paralyze my thinking, and I felt as if I were in a void where there was no love, no gratitude, and no joy. The practitioner asked if I wanted any other kind of help or any other practitioner, and I assured her that I felt the time had come when only God could help us and that she was the proper one to bring that help to us.
I am grateful that God gave me the courage and faith to stand in that hour. The practitioner turned my thought to these words from a beloved hymn (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 144):
