Three of the Gospels in the Bible record the healing of an epileptic child. The narratives in Matthew and Mark develop the same story with just slight differences in the telling. A father had brought his son to Jesus’ disciples for healing, but they were unable to help. Then Jesus entered the scene, and the father turned to him for the healing. When Jesus told the father that he must believe all things are possible, the man answered in tears, “Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief” (see Mark 9:14–24).
One Sunday morning when this account was read as the Scriptural Selection in church, I found myself thinking of what was meant by “unbelief.” In examining the story, I realized that Jesus took the father’s thought into consideration for this healing. It was not the child Jesus talked to, but the father.
In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy advises: “To prevent disease or to cure it, the power of Truth, of divine Spirit, must break the dream of the material senses. . . . If the case is that of a young child or an infant, it needs to be met mainly through the parent’s thought, silently or audibly on the aforesaid basis of Christian Science” (p. 412).
