A few years ago, I became aware of a growth in one of my sinuses. I prayed about it initially, and then, since it wasn’t something I was aware of all the time, I would pray only when it came to thought. I felt very comfortable trusting in the truth of a statement from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive” (p. 463). As God’s beloved daughter, I knew my true nature is that of a spiritual idea, the expression of God. God is cognizant of us and caring for us every moment, and I knew that because this is true, the imposition of believing something inharmonious had developed in my being could not stand. Nothing could jeopardize my safety in God.
I was also able to see how aggressive thoughts regarding potential causes or consequences of the condition were actually ridiculous because they were not thoughts from God. And as they became laughable, this helped to neutralize fear. I also prayed with an idea I’d come across years ago: “It’s not a project; it’s a lie.” To me this meant that it was right not to make a “thing” out of the belief, or a big project of trying to get rid of it, but to contradict its reality whenever that suggestion came to thought. My task wasn’t to heal some thing, but rather to dispute evidence from the material senses on the basis of divine Truth, and to let God’s reality shine through.
Then there came a day where I couldn’t help but constantly be aware of the growth, and in the evening there were new symptoms that might really have been alarming if I hadn’t already prayed the way I had. At that point, though, through God’s grace, it seemed even more logical to me that God was governing and maintaining me, that these symptoms never indicated a real condition of my being, and that it was completely normal to be trusting God that whatever adjustment was necessary would be made. I knew that as a child of God, I was always safe and exempt from disease and danger, a spiritual fact Mary Baker Eddy identifies as a foundational point in metaphysical treatment (see Science and Health, p. 411).
