Several years ago, an irritating skin condition appeared on my body. As a student of Christian Science, I wanted to follow the path to healing based on prayer that seeks and strives to understand more about God, spiritual man (my own real identity), and the divine laws relating to the perfection of God and man. In this case, striving sometimes meant walking the floor on nights when I couldn't sleep, seeking spiritual inspiration, and arguing for my perfection and innocence as Spirit's likeness. There was certainly progress in understanding my true spiritual identity. But about two years passed, and I began to feel hopeless about being healed. Part of this hopelessness came from guilt over what I felt was my personal inability to demonstrate the control and discipline necessary simply to stop scratching.
One night as I walked to my desk to talk things over with God, as it were, I heard myself say, "You will never be free of this condition. It can't be healed." In the past, similar thoughts, extreme arguments that suggested the impossibility of healing, had sometimes come to me just prior to major breakthroughs or complete healings. And I knew that the argument had to be coming from the carnal mind, the illusion of an evil intelligence opposed to God, good. It certainly wasn't from the God who loved me— nor was the thought my own. So I sat down and turned completely to Mind for inspiration, asking God what He wanted me to understand and see. Clearly to thought—almost as if spoken— came the words "Moses' bosom." That was all. Frankly, I thought I'd better start over and ask again. But the message was the same.
Then I remembered the account in Exodus where Moses was being prepared to demonstrate God's authority to the Egyptians: "Put now thine hand into thy bosom," God told Moses, ". . . and when he took it out, behold, his hand was leprous as snow." Then God directed Moses to repeat the act, and his hand "was turned again as his other flesh." Ex. 4:6,7. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy explains: "It was scientifically demonstrated that leprosy was a creation of mortal mind and not a condition of matter, when Moses first put his hand into his bosom and drew it forth white as snow with the dread disease, and presently restored his hand to its natural condition by the same simple process. God had lessened Moses' fear by this proof in divine Science . . . ." Science and Health, p. 321.
