[We thought this letter said a lot about branch churches. About how they support healing and how important our individual prayer is. And about what it is that puts us to sleep just when we need to be most awake to our branch church's promise!]
"When one of our children was an infant, a physical difficulty developed on the baby's face. The child was oblivious to it, but over many months it seemed as though whenever the child was outside, neighbors or strangers would comment about it. Except at church. There our little family felt supported in our prayer, though we were new members. The burden would lift a bit and we would feel refreshed and hopeful. Sometimes, I'll have to admit, as the church service began, I would feel tears spilling down my face. But inevitably, by the end of the hour, the natural conviction that God's goodness is law would return strengthened— and I wouldn't feel as though I were under such a demand to take material evidence at face value, so to speak. The healing of this very visible difficulty did take place, and it encouraged many.
"And it moved my sense of branch church services off dead center. Since then if, for instance, I'm feeling a bit drowsy during a service, or simply not really awake to what's going on and why we're there, I'm less likely just to wait for the service to be over. I'll remember those months when our need had seemed great and I would literally hang on every word. I'll remember how during that time no service seemed like a dud. Without exception, each spoke directly to my need. Bible people who had stayed in there with God, surmounting horrible circumstances and their own shortcomings, were like dear, dear friends. Christ Jesus' teachings seemed so wonderfully unembellished and practical. The readings from Science and Health [written by Mary Baker Eddy], pointing toward the understandability of God's all-ness and cutting through the enigma of mortal sorrows and sickness, never seemed theoretical or mocking during the services, but true and healing.
