In 2003, during a routine eye exam for renewal of my contact lens prescription, the doctor said I had a deteriorating eye condition. He recommended I start using eye drops immediately. I declined to do so, and called a Christian Science practitioner to pray with me. I also agreed to return to the eye doctor for another appointment in two weeks.
During the next two weeks I gave deep consideration to Mary Baker Eddy’s instruction on page 495 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious—as Life eternally is—can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not. Let Christian Science, instead of corporeal sense, support your understanding of being, and this understanding will supplant error with Truth, replace mortality with immortality, and silence discord with harmony.”
I prayerfully studied this passage phrase by phrase, affirming that each statement in it was true and applied to me as God’s spiritual reflection. I also studied the definition of eyes in the Glossary of Science and Health: “Spiritual discernment,—not material but mental” (p. 586). This helped me understand that true vision is a spiritual faculty that man expresses as God’s child.
