Suffering with a fever all afternoon and not making any headway with my own prayers, I asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. He said he would, and the moment I hung up the phone, I was well.
The instant freedom from pain and illness was wonderful. In a modest way, I knew what those who were instantly healed by Jesus must have felt. This quick healing reminded me of a passage from the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. She wrote: "Less teaching and good healing is to-day the acme of 'well done;' a healing that is not guesswork,—chronic recovery ebbing and flowing,—but instantaneous cure" (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 355).
Wanting to know more about this "instantaneous cure," I called the practitioner back. I told him that I had prayed all afternoon with no effect, but when I asked him to pray, I was immediately well. I asked him what made his prayers so effective. He said he just wouldn't believe that I could be sick. His disbelief in the sickness broke the hold my own belief of my illness had on my thought. Now this was something new for me to think about. He referred me to this sentence in Science and Health: "Disbelief in error destroys error, and leads to the discernment of Truth" (p. 346). He said his disbelief had its foundation in the fact that I am a spiritual child of God, and this truth outlawed anything that could bring suffering.
