WHEN OUR DAUGHTER was growing up, several dentists and hygienists confidently reported that she would definitely need braces in the future. Her teeth were out of place and some had come in behind others. Finally, after a subsequent visit to another dentist who repeated the prior diagnosis, I made an appointment with an orthodontist.
At that point, my husband asked me to wait a week so he could pray with our daughter. After studying the Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly each morning, he would write her a note with ideas that specifically pertained to teeth. His assurance and confidence that God was her Maker and was maintaining everything about her in perfect, precise order—with nothing out of place—was calming and healing for all of us. In the Bible, the prophet Isaiah reminds us many times about who our Creator is and why He made us: "I have created him for my glory, I have formed him; yea, I have made him" (Isa. 43:7).
Often medical opinion can be given with an air of inevitability, leaving the patient feeling there is no choice but to follow through with the suggested course of treatment. But there is always another choice if we're willing to stop for a moment and remember that God's laws of good and perfection are always operating and always have been—in our past, present, and future. Mary Baker Eddy explained that "The determination to hold Spirit in the grasp of matter is the persecutor of Truth and Love" (Science and Health, p. 28).
The Bible story of David and Goliath is a good example of how imposing such a diagnosis can seem. Goliath was huge, he was loud, and he was certainly impressive to the physical senses.
Because he was supremely confident that no one could possibly be more powerful than he, Goliath laughed at the soldiers of Israel, who were all mesmerized with fear. "Choose you a man for you, and let him come down to me. If he be able to fight with me, and to kill me, then will we be your servants: but if I prevail against him, and kill him, then shall ye be our servants, and serve us" (I Sam. 17:8, 9).
In simplest terms, the champion of Gath was saying, "You must inevitably bow down to me, because I can take you out!" As we all know, however, the outcome of this battle was Goliath's defeat and Israel's freedom.
That story is a powerful metaphor for me, because it depicts the conflict between matter-based hypotheses and spiritual reasoning. To me, in one sense Goliath represents the willpower of medical theory, and David, the standpoint of spiritual conviction—faith in the one God. David was not intimidated or terrorized by Goliath's appearance or volume, nor did David get caught up in the fearful, fatalistic thinking of his fellow Israelites. Similarly, today we can take a courageous stand against the mass conviction that the medical model is the only safe and viable method of treating disease or receiving healthcare.
After a week of my husband's prayerful communication with our daughter, and our family's refusal to be intimidated, it was clear that we no longer needed to consult an orthodontist. Over the ensuing months, something wonderful happened! Each of my daughter's teeth actually moved into its rightful place. The end result was that she emerged from the experience with a perfect, lovely smile. Now years later, when my daughter goes in for a cleaning, the dentist reports that if all of his patients had teeth like hers, "I'd be out of business!" She has never experienced a single decaying cavity, and her teeth are exactly where they should be.
The pressure to accept that a bodily problem exists and that the only way to solve it is through medical care was alleviated when we made the decision to turn completely to God for a true picture of our daughter. Then, His view of her prevailed, and that was all any of us could see. In Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy wrote, "When once destroyed by divine Science [God's law in action], the false evidence before the corporeal senses disappears."
And that is exactly what happened. Mrs. Eddy continued, "Hence the opposition of sensuous man to the Science of Soul and the significance of the Scripture, 'The carnal mind is enmity against God' " (p. 131). Evidence of successful Christian healing may engender opposition from matter-based (carnal) reasoning, but this resistance—when ultimately faced down—is clear evidence of spiritual growth.
I'm so grateful to know that no matter how big, ugly, loud, or entrenched a false picture seems to be, we have the only real authority or expert on the situation on our side. Of course, that's God.
THOUSAND OAKS, CALIFORNIA, US
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