When a healing seems to take a long time, the temptation can be to justify this by thinking, “Well, eventually, over time, the healing will take place.”
That was the case with me when a small growth developed over one of my eyelids. I had no pain, but it was unsightly and embarrassing. At first I had a tendency to look in the mirror frequently to see if there had been an increase or decrease in the growth. Would time take care of the healing? I was also tempted to think that healing was primarily a bodily event that would cause the condition to go away. If so, I was concerned that I would not be sure whether prayer had effected the eventual healing outcome.
The issue remained for a few years. I continued to pray for myself, and during this period, a friend drew my attention to this statement in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “Christian Science brings to the body the sunlight of Truth, which invigorates and purifies. Christian Science acts as an alterative, neutralizing error with Truth. It changes the secretions, expels humors, dissolves tumors, relaxes rigid muscles, restores carious bones to soundness. The effect of this Science is to stir the human mind to a change of base, on which it may yield to the harmony of the divine Mind” (p. 162).
