OVER EIGHT YEARS AGO, an eruptive and inflammatory skin condition developed on my leg. Itchy and unsightly, it made me feel unattractive and it slowed down my active lifestyle. I had to wear long pants, even on hot days, to keep my leg covered. In spite of all that, for several years I made very little effort to heal the condition. Mostly, I just lived with it as a chronic annoyance.
One day, though, when the itching seemed unbearable, I applied an anti-itch cream that did provide some temporary relief of the itching but didn't clear up the condition. Soon after buying the cream, I threw it away, but I still didn't buckle down and pray to heal the condition.
Then six years after the skin condition first developed, I was elected First Reader of our Christian Science branch church. I finally decided it was time to confront the condition through diligent prayer. As I did, instead of diminishing, the condition began to spread on both of my legs, to my feet, fingers, neck, and chest. I wasn't alarmed by this because I felt this more aggressive material evidence was just a more insistent temptation to turn me from my goal of healing the condition through Christian Science. I took to heart Mary Baker Eddy's statement, "It requires courage to utter truth; for the higher Truth lifts her voice, the louder will error scream, until its inarticulate sound is forever silenced in oblivion" ("Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 97).
