When a museum conservator is restoring a broken artifact—say, a marble statue that is missing a body part—he or she first has to consider what the entire artifact originally looked like. The wholeness of the original statue is the model, and before starting the restoration, the conservator must first perceive this form clearly in thought.
This approach is related to healing prayer. According to the Bible, God is the creator of man, meaning each of us. And Christian Science teaches that God, who is Love and Mind, models us entirely on Himself, creating us from the pure spiritual substance or divine thought. We are not formed of any transitory material.
In her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, observes: “God creates all forms of reality. His thoughts are spiritual realities” (p. 513).
