Late one afternoon I felt a large and painful lump in the gum area just below one of my teeth. I didn't pay much attention to it at first. My husband and I were preparing for a road trip, and I was trying to finish last-minute errands, complete our packing, and make final preparations to leave that evening. When I found a moment, though, I looked in the mirror, I was immediately alarmed by what I saw. The gum was swollen and the pain had increased. I was especially concerned because we had a long drive ahead of us that evening and the next day.
Since I'm used to turning to God when I'm in need of physical healing, it was natural for me to respond to this situation by praying. This prayer stopped me in my mental tracks of fear and worry and turned my thoughts to God. I asked Him to tell me what He saw and what He knew to be my present state of being. No matter what the physical appearance, I knew that God was seeing me, His child, made and maintained in His image and likeness. I closed my eyes and quietly listened.
The message that came was surprising: "Make nothing of this." I knew this didn't mean that I should ignore the problem. Rather, it meant that I was to see what God was seeing as true about me as His child. I knew that inharmony and pain were nothing to God and had no power to affect or change my spiritual identity.
