When one meets a friend or an acquaintance, he gives an immediate gesture of recognition or acknowledgment. This is a part of daily experience. Thoughts about the one so identified usually flood consciousness, and such thoughts may be happifying or otherwise. Throughout the day, we are recognizing and acknowledging either thoughts of a useful and uplifting nature or their opposites. What we are accepting as worthy of a place in our mental household determines the harmony of our thinking and our daily experience.
Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p.495): "When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious—as Life eternally is—can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not."
These words seem especially illumined to one Christian Scientist because of their help in a healing experience. She awakened one night in a great deal of pain in the area of one of her teeth. As the pain seemed to increase in intensity, she arose and took the Concordances to Mrs. Eddy's writings and turned to the references under the words "pain" and "painful." She did not permit herself to localize the pain in a faulty tooth or to dwell upon any material cause. She turned completely to the truths found in the Bible and Mrs. Eddy's writings. The statement of our Leader's quoted in the preceding paragraph especially attracted her attention, and she studied it.
