One morning I woke up with a painful lower belly. I ignored it during a busy day, expecting it to just go away on its own. But it didn’t, and by the next day I knew I had to confront this with healing prayer. As I’d done many times, I gave myself a Christian Science treatment. This included affirming that God is the only creator, and that I am created in the image of God, Spirit, which means that I am spiritual and perfect; this profound truth of being makes it impossible for anything to interfere with the perfection or health of God’s creation.
However, when the pain didn’t go away and, instead, got worse, a bunch of negative suggestions—even frightening scenarios of life-threatening illnesses—came knocking at my mental door. I was a bit surprised, since I thought I did a pretty good job of not allowing the widely broadcast images and descriptions of disease to take root in my thinking.
As I tried to pray, those fearful thoughts of disease crowded in on me. It was as if my prayer was being heckled—as if I were a performer onstage dealing with a rude, aggressive audience member shouting out insults. In order to find healing, I knew that these aggressive suggestions needed to be shut down.
