Early in my study of Christian Science I learned the wisdom of not being impressed with afflictive material conditions. In rearing three children, I found when I refused to focus attention on cuts, bruises, or other difficulties, and declared the truth of man's spiritual identity, healings came quickly.
One of the children caught her finger in the door of a car. The door had to be opened to release it. I carried her into the house, and at no time did we look at the finger. I prayed, declaring her spiritual identity, free from mishap, and never touched by matter. She quieted down quickly. Two of the points that contributed to her healing, I remember most clearly, were that we had just been on an errand as a kindness for a neighbor, and I knew that the little girl couldn't suffer from doing an act of kindness; also, her willing obedience in not looking at the finger. About midnight when I went to the children's bedroom to tuck them in once more, my glance fell on the finger. There was nothing left of the injury but a faint red line, and by morning that had disappeared.
On another occasion a neighbor across the road frantically phoned and asked me to call the fire department. She said her summer kitchen (separate from her house) was on fire. I did call the fire department. Then, instead of going to a window to see what the fire was doing, I stood still and declared that fire was nothing but the fury of mortal mind—a supposed power apart from God—and therefore had no power to destroy. I recalled what Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 293): "There is no vapid fury of mortal mind—expressed in earthquake, wind, wave, lightning, fire, bestial ferocity—and this so-called mind is self-destroyed." I don't know how long I stood there, but about the time I heard the siren of the fire engine at the top of the hill, a mile away, the doorbell rang. It was the neighbor, with the most amazed look on her face. She said, "I can't understand it—the fire went out!" Then she turned and went out to the road to tell the firemen that their services would not be needed. Later that afternoon she came over to tell me that when she had lighted her big oil cooking stove, oil that had been leaking onto the floor caught fire; and when she ran to her house to phone, the flame had crossed the room and had started up the wall. When she went back out to the kitchen, the flames were dying out as though water had been poured on them. Three times she said, "The fire just went out!"
