One evening last winter I came home from work with a headache. Instead of addressing the problem through prayer in Christian Science, I decided to just ignore the discomfort until it went away. I stretched out on my bed and turned on the TV but was soon forced out of my laziness by my six-year-old, who burst into my room crying about one of his eyes.
He was in too much distress to explain what had happened, but the eye looked puffy and inflamed. My two boys are always roughhousing, and my older son said he thought the eye had been poked when they were playing together two days earlier, then poked again that evening.
While I held and comforted my younger son, I mentally affirmed that God, good, is the only cause, and that therefore the only effect could be good. I reassured him that he was loved, protected, and cared for, and that nothing could harm him.
