I was expecting a baby! And the Christian Science practitioner I'd called was as delighted with the news as my husband and I were. But as she and I prayed together, I began to realize that while there was something fascinating and delightful developing within me, to view it spiritually was to realize that there was absolutely nothing physical or materially structural about God's creation.
In a sense, the development of what seemed to be a physical child could be seen as the development in my consciousness of a clearer understanding of the true idea of man. Through prayer I could cherish and nurture this idea and expect to see it revealed more clearly. My real labor for the next nine months (and beyond!) was to seek to spiritualize my concept of man and birth and to accept the baby as in truth God's own cherished child.
Something Mrs. Eddy says in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, made me feel that this was not an isolated, personal experience but an integral part of all mankind's struggle for spiritual dominion and freedom from materialism. She writes, "Divine Science deals its chief blow at the supposed material foundations of life and intelligence."Science and Health, p. 535.
