When one of my sons was a young child, a contagious illness of concern at the time was chickenpox. I had seen other children who had struggled through it, so I was aware of the symptoms when I saw my son showing signs of it. In order to obey local rules and out of love for others, I knew I would need to quarantine my son until all signs of the illness had passed, which was often a couple of weeks. As I looked at my son, I knew I could turn to God for healing and adamantly declared in thought, “No, this is no part of God’s perfect child.” Since he wasn’t aware of the symptoms, I let him continue to play on his own, and I called a Christian Science practitioner to pray for us.
My declaration was based on a statement in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “The three great verities of Spirit, omnipotence, omnipresence, omniscience,—Spirit possessing all power, filling all space, constituting all Science,—contradict forever the belief that matter can be actual” (pp. 109–110). So, if Spirit, not matter, is the actual substance of all, then disease has nothing to attach itself to and no real substance. And if matter and disease have no actual substance, then thought is the important aspect to be addressed.
I was aware that this child and all children are, in reality, expressions of Love and Life. In the Glossary of Science and Health, which provides metaphysical interpretations of Bible terms, our Leader defines children in part as “the spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love” (p. 582). My beautiful child, as well as all of God’s children, reflected only pure good as the creation of God, who is the source of all good and only good. Since God is all-powerful good and the creator of all that’s real, this child couldn’t be anything but good in every way.
