As a child I felt very secure in a home where Christian Science was studied and practiced daily. Physical inharmonies were quickly healed through the prayers of my parents or with the help of a Christian Science practitioner. After I married and had a family of my own, it seemed natural to rely on God for all our family's needs, as I had been taught to do in the Christian Science Sunday School and by the loving example of my parents.
When our older son was three years old, he swallowed part of a lollipop stick, which apparently lodged in his throat. He began choking. I was nearly overcome with a feeling of panic, because my human efforts to dislodge the stick were fruitless. I called a Christian Science practitioner for help through prayer. She reminded me that "a spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive" (Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, p. 463). When I hung up the phone, my fears just dropped away. I stopped agonizing over an obstruction that had to come out of him and started realizing that our son, as a spiritual idea, didn't have a trace of matter which had to be removed.
Suddenly I was aware that he had become calm in my arms. He climbed down from my lap and began playing as though nothing had happened. He never spoke of the incident.
