IMAGINE GROWING UP as a child without fear, free to push beyond limitations, having complete confidence that God, being divine, all-powerful, ever-present Love, is always there to protect us and that suffering is not God's will. And then imagine this confidence being played out in immediate healings through my own prayers—at age seven, after falling on my glass jar of spiders, which broke into many pieces; at age eight, when I was stung by a swarm of bees one summer at Girl Scout camp; and at age ten, when someone accidentally poured a boiling liquid on my leg. Each time through prayer in Christian Science, the pain disappeared immediately and a complete healing followed just as quickly. It doesn't get any better than that!
The reason, I feel, that Christian Science enables us to live free of suffering is because it teaches that health is the natural state of God's creation.
My family has relied exclusively on scientific prayer in Christian Science for four generations—ever since the early 1900s. In my own life—which has included competitive sports, performing as a professional ballet dancer, and traveling in areas rife with unsanitary conditions—I've never taken medicine, drugs, or vitamins, or had surgery. The reason, I feel, that Christian Science enables us to live free of suffering is because it teaches that health is the natural state of God's creation—for each of us, irrespective of gender, race, age, or religious background, or even if someone has no religion. The Bible assures us that His creation is complete—nothing can be added to it (no sickness or disease), nor anything taken from it (harmonious functioning and movement) (see Eccl. 3:14). And Christian Science not only heals physical challenges, but perhaps even more important, as a mother, I'm grateful for the preventive aspect of this Science—the exemption from contagion, false influences, and harm that the knowledge of God's infinite care makes possible.
