Although for many years my needs have been met without the use of medicine through Christian Science prayer alone, I always felt the need for novocaine or a similar anesthetic whenever I had a cavity drilled by a dentist.
About six years ago, however, after making a dental appointment, a sense of protest and indignation—which I hadn’t felt before—welled up in me. It suddenly made no sense to me that I could rely on God for every need except dental visits. I decided a first step would be to no longer submit to what I felt was a compromise by taking a drug before having a tooth drilled. I called a Christian Science practitioner to ask for prayerful support.
Although I was nervous, and the experience was a bit jarring, I felt no pain when my tooth was drilled. In fact, during two subsequent dental appointments for the filling of cavities, I again felt no pain, as a result of Christian Science treatment. I was grateful for these demonstrations of God’s power to prevent pain, but the experiences were not what I’d characterize as totally harmonious. There were still, as I discovered recently, lessons to be learned.
