When our first son was born, healthy and strong, the doctor in attendance exclaimed, "Oh, I thought that baby would not be alive!" The Christian Science nurse had previously been a medical nurse, and she later explained that a condition had been manifested, which, according to medical science, results in the death of an infant. The Christian Science practitioner who was helping me was in a city fifteen miles away. She told me afterward that she had spent all that night before the birth declaring the Truth, because she had felt that something was wrong.
At the age of six weeks this baby went for eight days without a bowel movement. When I released him from the fear in my thought and acknowledged him as actually God's child, the healing came. When he started school, we were told he needed to have his tonsils removed and treatment from a foot specialist. These conditions were met by Christian Science treatment. Later when he took a physical examination prior to entering the Marine Corps, he was rated physically and mentally at the top of the group taking the examination.
After he had been in the service a few months, I was awakened one morning by a frightening dream about this boy. I worked until I was sure in my own thinking that, no matter what physical evidence might be presented, it could be no more real than the dream I had been having. Later that day the boy wrote us a letter saying that he had just missed being shot by a 45 caliber automatic pistol which he had handed to a companion to check. Something prompted him to move, and the bullet passed through the space in which he had just been standing. He wrote: "I was wonderfully protected. I am sure glad I am a Christian Scientist, and that you brought me up that way. Thank you very much."
