MANY YEARS AGO, while living in Europe, I became very ill with influenza the same day I was to be a guest at a New Year's Eve party. By midafternoon, when there had been no improvement, I called a friend from a Christian Science Society I attended to ask for metaphysical support. She gave me this passage from Science and Health to study and pray with: "Maintain the facts of Christian Science,—that Spirit is God, and therefore cannot be sick; that what is termed matter cannot be sick; that all causation is Mind, acting through spiritual law. Then hold your ground with the unshaken understanding of Truth and Love, and you will win. When you silence the witness against your plea, you destroy the evidence, for the disease disappears" (p. 417).
I memorized this passage and continued to think about it until I felt I was fully aware of the truth of my spiritual being instead of the condition of my physical body.
I will never forget what happened next. It felt as if the illness suddenly peeled away from my body, and I immediately felt completely well. I dressed quickly, went to the New Year's Eve party, stayed up all night, and even helped the hosts clean up the next day—all with absolutely no aftereffects. I had held my ground that I could not be sick and the flu symptoms simply disappeared.
