One morning several years ago my husband was ill with symptoms of flu and asked me to pray for him. I deeply wanted to see him well again and so I turned to God with my whole heart for the spiritual truths needed to quell my own anxiety as well as provide healing to him.
What took place in my consciousness that morning taught me a great deal about the power of God-directed prayer. As I prayed, I gained vital, fresh, and specific insights into the nature of divine reality as wholly good and was able to denounce with conviction the symptoms of illness pictured by the material senses. Soon I felt the metaphysical work was complete, and with gratitude started to go about my day's activities.
I sensed something more was needed, though, so I sat down again and quietly listened. It was immediately apparent to me that my sense of prayer itself needed bolstering. "Sure these truths are wonderfully inspiring and helpful and have some significance, but look what they're up against," mortal mind was saying. "How is the prayer that unfolded to your lone consciousness going to overcome a condition that is believed by millions to be real and to have a predictable course and duration?" Back in answer came these words of Mrs. Eddy's: "His substance outweighs the material world." (This sentence is part of a colloquy in which Mrs. Eddy includes questions that one might ask about a newborn child, although her answers pertain to the reappearing of the divine idea in this age. "How much does he weigh? His substance outweighs the material world," Miscellaneous Writings, p. 167. she writes.)
