By Juli Vice 

From the June 2011 issue of The Christian Science Journal

When I joined my first branch church, I started challenging my thought about the concept of Church. This process included seeing beyond the material building and church services to what Church really represented in the community. The more I witnessed healings with my family, the more I knew that I could share Christian Science with the world as part of my church work. I started doing this and found that those with whom I shared Christian Science appreciated the concepts about God and that healing was possible through prayer. 

Several years ago, I had the opportunity to expand my conceptions about church work even further. I felt led to work in the local public high school with special education students. As part of my duties, I was required to transfer students from an elevated mat to a wheelchair. We had been trained how to do this properly; however, one of the times that I was transferring a student, her movement pulled me in a way that seemed to cause injury to my back. I was able to finish transferring the student to the chair and then asked the supervising teacher if I could have a moment of quiet time in one of the work rooms nearby. She permitted me to do this and I took my Christian Science Bible Lesson with me to read. I prayed to see that there were no accidents in God’s law since His government is all good and is constant, never sporadic. 

After praying for a while I decided to go home. The administrator told me that I needed to go to a doctor to get a diagnosis in case there would be a workman’s compensation claim. I saw this as an opportunity for me to share with the individual that I was a Christian Scientist and that I would be asking for help from a Christian Science practitioner. I realized that by making this statement I was already declaring that Christian Science works and I could be confident that a healing would be witnessed by my co-workers. 

Once I was home, I called a practitioner who told me to read the definition of Church in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle. 

“The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick” (p. 583). This definition really sparked my thought. I thought about my work with the students as part of my church work. I stopped thinking about the event that caused the injury and started to see that this was a wonderful opportunity to prove that Christian Science works.

As I read the passage, I thought about “the structure of Truth and Love” and let it strengthen me and fill me with love for my job and my practice of Christian Science. I understood that God was my strength and not a material structure. I saw that I also needed to let go of resentment about the extreme physical requirements on employees without their being provided proper equipment due to lack of funding for the program. This sense of unfairness was being expressed by co-workers, and I saw that in going along with this line of thinking, I was admitting the possibility of injury into my thought. I realized that neither I, nor my co-workers, could be victimized. God’s love for each of us could be seen and felt in this work. I could express love in my work without restriction, pain, or weakness—and I could do it with joy. My thought was being roused to apprehend my spiritual nature. 

I also was reminded of what Mrs. Eddy wrote in Science and Health: “Whatever it is your duty to do, you can do without harm to yourself” (p. 385). It was important for me to know that I couldn’t be harmed performing my job duties, because my motives for doing the work were pure. I kept my thought turned toward God through the evening and fell asleep resting in His love. When I awoke the following morning, I found that the pain had diminished significantly, but I knew that I still needed to continue praying. I went to school with expectations of good, and decided that it would be fine to accompany some of the students to the state Special Olympics Games and fulfill my duties as one of the coaches. During the bus ride to the location, the students were talking about the games, and I was so struck by their sense of joy that it filled me with love for each one of them. 

When we arrived, we all got off the bus and walked upstairs to our rooms. As I was walking up the stairs, I realized that I was walking upright, without pain, and had no trouble carrying my bag. I gave gratitude right then for the healing and continued to have a joyous weekend with the students. 

When I returned to school Monday, I cherished the ideas that I gained from studying the definition of Church.Having the opportunity to expand my thought about Church showed me that the work of Church goes beyond church walls and into our community, to benefit those around us as we are practicing Christian Science in our daily lives. This expansive idea of “the structure of Truth and Love” has helped me see that Church is a living, vital idea. I saw the activity of Church taking place in that classroom, and it helped me express strength and freedom from the false belief of an injury right where it seemed to be an accepted part of the job. I have continued to feel Love’s support in all of my work and have cherished the opportunity to express God in my community. 

By Juli Vice, published in the April 12, 2010 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

I’ve always loved this verse from Psalms: “God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (46:1). Over the years, my family and I have been continuously comforted by that truth. Many opportunities to feel this comfort came during the pregnancy and birth of our second child.

From the time I found out that we were expecting, I began praying with a Christian Science practitioner to see the child as spiritual, as an idea of God, Spirit, and also to start from the basis of God as the universal Parent not only for the child, but for us as well. With our first child we’d had a home birth, which was such a wonderful, harmonious experience. The delivery had taken place so effortlessly, and even the midwife had commented on this. Based on that first experience, we decided to have our second child at home also.

We made a call to a midwife and, during the first visit, found that this midwife had a more clinical approach to childbirth. I talked to her about how I relied on prayers as a means of healthcare, instead of medicine. The midwife’s assistant, a very devout woman of faith, had been present at the birth of our first child, and shared with this midwife that based on what she had witnessed during that first birth, reliance on prayer in Christian Science worked.

During the months of visits with our midwife, there were a couple of things she was concerned about—my blood pressure and the possibility that I was a candidate for gestational diabetes. One day, she decided to run some tests and I agreed. When I went home afterward, I called the Christian Science practitioner I’d been talking with, and she reminded me that each time I was examined, the midwife was capable of seeing what God sees, which is God’s complete and perfect idea. This pertained both to myself and the baby.

As a result of my prayer, I realized that I’d been feeling stressed about each of my scheduled visits. I needed to see the midwife also as a child of God, able to see me in the right spiritual light, expressing freedom from flaws or health issues. I prayed also to quiet the fear that something might be wrong with the baby. It became clear to me that God never leaves us, guarding and guiding our thoughts and actions every moment.

After that, when I went in for my exams, I felt completely at peace, and when my blood pressure was taken, it was normal. I was reminded of the statement Mary Baker Eddy makes in Science and Health that “a spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive” (p. 463). Continued prayer helped me see myself and the child as completely pure and spiritual, and I felt confident that this would be evident.

When the midwife received the results from the gestational diabetes test, she told me it was amazing. She wasn’t expecting everything to be perfect with both the baby and with me. This was a great opportunity to see that God was in control and to really love with a true Christian love, even when it seemed as if someone was expecting things to be wrong.

When the day of delivery came, our midwife was out of town, so we had to call a substitute. When it came time for me to deliver the baby, I found that I couldn’t seem to make any progress pushing. There was a great deal of pain, and I was tiring quickly. I became fearful that something was wrong and prayed intensely to God for help, affirming that God was right there supplying us all with the needed wisdom for solutions to come forward. The angel message came immediately to shift a certain way, and after doing this, there was very gentle, gradual progress, and our healthy, large, baby boy was delivered a few minutes later.

After the delivery, the midwife made a remark about how well the delivery had gone, even though there had been a couple of complications and things causing internal resistance. I immediately gave gratitude for God’s loving care for all of us and for the calm, helpful, and receptive thoughts of the midwife and her assistant. The assistant even commented that there was no doubt in her mind that God had been present.

When I called the Christian Science practitioner to tell her the news, I asked her what she’d been praying with. She said that she was praying to know that there was one Mind, God, governing the entire process. I was so grateful to see the proof of that prayer.

Our son is now in college and is a healthy, athletic young man who also relies on prayer for healing. Christian Science is truly that “pearl of great price” that we can cherish.

By Juli Vice 

From the April 2025 issue of The Christian Science Journal

Some time ago, I had an eye-opening experience that gave me a deeper understanding of the truth which Jesus taught us. I was struggling to breathe and there were moments where I was fearful I might not survive. When I reached out to a Christian Science practitioner for prayerful support, she lovingly stayed on the phone with me until the crisis eased. I held on to what she had shared with me, and we both continued praying on our own. 

At some point that night the question came to me, “Do you really accept what Christ Jesus proved for mankind through his resurrection? He proved that death is unreal. Do you really believe it?” Could I truly accept Jesus’ example? As I thought about this, I recognized that Life is the truth of being, therefore of my being as God’s image and likeness. Jesus demonstrated eternal life and I could definitely accept that as true.

The unchanging law of Life governs every single idea of God, including me. 

Something I also realized was that Jesus, during his time in the tomb, was proving “the power of Spirit to overrule mortal, material sense” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 44). And he was doing it mentally. So this meant to me that what I needed to do was accept that God was my life and that “Life is real, and death is the illusion” (Science and Health, p. 428). It was only an aggressive mental suggestion that my life was fragile and temporary. I did not ever have to accept this suggestion. 

This was an opportunity for me to work out what was true about my life. I really needed a change of base of thought. I needed to see that Life is God and is continuous because Life is infinite and eternal. Life cannot be interrupted and, because we exist in divine, infinite Life, our existence cannot be snuffed out. It was becoming clearer to me that although Jesus had been maligned, tortured, and crucified, none of those human events were the real, the spiritual, picture and none could change the eternal law of Life. 

I then saw that I didn’t need to get stuck on trying to sort out if I seemed to be suffering from climate, from contagion, or maybe even from being “under attack” by the thoughts and feelings of others. The truth that I needed to hold on to was that the unchanging law of Life governs every single individual as an idea of God, the likeness of God, including me. My, and everyone’s, unbreakable oneness with our Father-Mother God, divine Life, was something that I could welcome as true. My thinking had moved past fear, and as a result, my breathing became more normal and I was confident in the healing power of divine Truth.

Two days later, I was back at my post as First Reader for my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, feeling nothing but great gratitude and joy for the lessons of Jesus’ resurrection. 

This healing gave me a fresh appreciation for Easter, celebrated across the globe. Although there’s often a focus on the heaviness of the crucifixion, it’s been important to me to give gratitude for the triumph of Christ Jesus’ resurrection, which happened three days after he was crucified. 

The resurrection was proof of the law of eternal Life that governs man. It further opened world thought to the promise of “life everlasting.” In fact, if we look at all of Christ Jesus’ demonstrations of divine Love, we see that they were done for the benefit of mankind. His life and works brought about a major shift in thought, which gave people a wider, higher, deeper perspective, far beyond their limited beliefs and lives steeped in obedience to material laws. 

Jesus taught that God is Spirit, and Christian Science illumines the fact that, as God’s reflection, we are spiritual, whole, and safe in God. This promise extends through all time. We can expect to feel uplifted as we see the resurrection as part of the provable Science of the Christ, operable in each of our lives. God, divine Life, is All-in-all. That being true, there can be no opposite called death. There is only Life and Life’s expression, which we each are. 

One of the synonyms of resurrection is reawakening, which takes place each time we realize that the activity of God, good, is all that really exists in every aspect of our lives.

Perhaps we are feeling downtrodden by the cares of this world, feeling as if we are losing hope. The promise of resurrection, based on the spiritual fact that Life, God, is All-in-all, can actually lift us out of despair and a “death” of hope. The law of Life and Love is eternal and infinite. It governs all. Christ Jesus’ proof that there is no death—in every sense—banishes belief in it. Thoughts of death or of the absence of truth, love, goodness, peace, life, can be redeemed as we awaken to a clearer view of these spiritual facts. As we reason this out prayerfully, standing on the reality that God is all Life, we see that anything that is good cannot be destroyed. 

Truth cannot be destroyed because Life and Truth are synonymous. The same is true about Love; it is forever with us. And we forever exist as the expression of Life, Truth, and Love. Goodness and peace are attributes of God, expressed throughout Love’s entire creation, which means they are always present and active in countless ways. 

When we remember that Life is All, we can bravely and steadfastly stand up to the challenges in front of us. We see that any belief of death has no law or breathing room. We are reawakened to the promise of Life and are lifted up to see new possibilities of good. The resurrection for us is a promise of the infinite, eternal, omniactive law of Life that we can demonstrate by degrees—we don’t have to wait for future good. 

As the cherished expressions of Life and Love, we are heirs to the kingdom of heaven, which is present right here, right now. There is only abundant Life and endless good in this kingdom. We can give gratitude for Christ Jesus’ proof of this eternal truth, which blesses all of us.

Soon, the wind and waves increased to the point that the kayak was starting to take on water. I was beginning to tire. For a moment, I was tempted to panic, but right then, two strong ideas came” and “God is not in the wind.” To me these ideas meant that God was always guiding me to be safe.
I focused on these ideas as I navigated the waves. They gave me courage and proof that divine Love is my “refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble” (Psalms 46:1). I also noticed that the seal was still with me, which was precious to me.
My task at that moment was to trust in God’s help and know that divine Love was meeting my need in the midst of the sea, even though the physical surroundings seemed to indicate I was in a dire situation. But was I going to accept that? As I asked myself that question, I was reminded of the first verse of a dear hymn from the Christian Science Hymnal:

In heavenly Love abiding,
No change my heart shall fear; And safe is such confiding,
For nothing changes here.
The storm may roar without me, My heart may low be laid;
But God is round about me, And can I be dismayed?
(Anna L. Waring, No. 148)

The message from this hymn was strong, and I had no doubt that it was from Love. As I sang those lines out loud, I found that divine wisdom was guiding me to angle the kayak in just a way that would minimize water coming in and allow me to move forward. And it was no surprise to me that I felt a renewed sense of strength and energy.
This reassurance that God was “round about me” brought me such gratitude and joy, and soon after, I made it safely to shore. I was also touched that the harbor seal, which I had come out to see, had kept me company the entire time, and once I was safely in the harbor, it turned around and left.
Within a short time, a storm rolled in with gale-force winds and torrential rain that continued through the night. It was a strong lesson to me about the importance of being obedient to divine direction.

So, how was I able to hear God’s voice? I have found in my daily practice of Christian Science that remaining focused on God helps to keep thought tuned in, so to speak, to the truths that divine Mind is unceasingly communicating to all of us. Whether I’m praying for others, driving in my car, or doing projects around the house, this focus on God makes me more aware of the saving laws of God that are always in effect. It also alerts me to what does not go along with God’s laws, such as discord, illness, limitation, hatred, fear, and so forth, and the unreality of that which opposes good is more readily discerned. Then problems are corrected by yielding to the reality of divine Truth, which is constantly broadcasting the law of harmony, limitlessness, love, perfection, and peace to all mankind.
We need to stay alert, though, in order to hear what Mind is saying to us and in order to determine whether the voice we’re hearing is God’s or not. Mrs. Eddy speaks of the need for this mental alertness in this way: “In a world of sin and sensuality hastening to a greater development of power, it is wise earnestly to consider whether it is the human mind or the divine Mind which is influencing one” (Science and Health, pp. 82–83).

Our ability to receive the messages coming from Mind is innate, because of our oneness with Mind. And, just as I heard a message from God and was protected from a storm in this one instance, we all can always hear and obey God and find refuge. As we get quiet, we’ll hear what God is saying and continue to be protected. We are all able to do this.

Juli Vice 

Reposted from the May 16, 2016 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

Most of us would agree that the sight of new-fallen snow is something to behold. The pristine and fresh nature of it—white and beautiful, covering everything with a blanket of clean brightness—inspires. 

The phrase “pure as the driven snow” goes hand-in-hand with the idea of newness. Mortal mind puts forth the concept that man has a material history that affects him throughout his life. In that context, the way one perceives one’s life would be dependent on that human history heaping up over time, in a cumulative manner. This could make one feel burdened with baggage of the past, tired, even cynical about one’s current situation or prospects for the future. 

I’ve found that it’s so important, and freeing, to look at ourselves from the standpoint of spiritual reality—as being God’s idea, God’s spiritual child, in a perpetual state of newness, untouched and uncontaminated by any mortal beliefs. When we have the childlike trust and spiritual understanding that all really is well—that God is All and is governing and guiding, and that there is, in reality, no material history to keep us downtrodden or muddy our thoughts about ourselves—we can prove in practical ways that our life in God is as unlimited and forever new as divine Life and Love itself.

Realizing that we are that pure, fresh expression of pure and perfect Mind, we are more able to express freshness in everything that we think and do. We don’t need to feel like the hamster in a wheel, going around and around, stuck in a cycle of repeating past errors or thoughts. That is not our heritage! Divine Love certainly does not see us as worn-out material beings. In the Bible’s book of Revelation, chapter 21 verse 5, we read that John the Revelator heard the divine message, “Behold, I make all things new.” His vision of the New Jerusalem presented the new, correct view—the kingdom of heaven, including our true individuality, which is entirely spiritual, without any aspects of materiality or human history. 

My husband and I have had many opportunities to prove these concepts about newness and freshness. For instance, several years ago my husband was denied tenure for political reasons that were not based on his job performance. It is the policy in the state where we live that once a teacher is denied tenure, he or she can no longer teach in that county. So the teacher’s position is terminated at the end of the school year. There was immediate outrage in the community because a handful of teachers, including my husband, had been singled out, and the feeling was that this was unjust. 

During a meeting with lawyers, the teachers were informed that they could pursue legal action because of the nature of the decision made. Public protests took place as well, calling for the reinstatement of the teachers. At the end of the day, though, my husband still needed a job. He felt that it was important to move forward during that time and look for another teaching position.

As soon as he told me about the situation, I called a Christian Science practitioner for help. The practitioner’s first words to me were, “What a wonderful opportunity for you!” That comment instantly broke the mesmerism of the gloomy circumstances. Opportunity? Yes, this was a chance to see the freshness of what God had in store. The comment lifted my thought to see that God was already meeting our needs, because in reality we were never separate from Him and His goodness. Fear about the future dissipated, and we were both able to trust that Love would lead us in the right direction. That very day my husband had one job offered to him, and another soon followed.

Over the next few days and after much prayerful work, my husband decided not to pursue any legal action, because he strongly felt that he needed to be an example of grace to others instead of someone full of resentment and bitterness, rehearsing past injustices. He had been endeavoring to see that because something discordant was not from God, it could never touch him as a loved idea of Love.

During this time, it was just as important to keep my own thought purely on God, knowing that Truth was governing. I was working at the same school as he, and there were many conversations about the situation. Teacher morale had become quite low. It was crucial for me to keep my thought fresh and inspired, uncontaminated by human opinions about the situation. I had learned over the years, through my study of Christian Science, that what God knows about man’s true status is all I needed to know; human opinions couldn’t bring about healing.

The beauty of the demonstration was that every member of our family was blessed by our willingness to be obedient to divine Mind’s direction. My husband soon started teaching in a nearby county, where we eventually moved. He was also able to do more coaching in addition to his teaching. Our children were able to have new opportunities in this new area, and I was able to work full time in the public practice of Christian Science. When I later joined the branch Church of Christ, Scientist, in the area, it also met the church’s need to have a Christian Science practitioner.

I am very certain that our willingness to stay focused on God instead of allowing the human events to trample and muddy our thinking opened new doors for us in ways that we could not have humanly outlined and that not only blessed us but others as well.

Mrs. Eddy states in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:“Trials are proofs of God’s care. Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth. Each successive stage of experience unfolds new views of divine goodness and love” (p. 66).

I’m grateful to always be learning that as God’s image we are forever one with divine Life, Spirit, Mind. Through the understanding of this, we are able to be constantly supplied with pure, unlimited, fresh ideas, relevant to just what we need. We live in Spirit, untouched by materiality; therefore, nothing can cause us to be burdened or trapped by circumstances. God is the source of all good, and we are given all that God has to give. This truth also applies in the case of a belief of chronic illness. Science and Health says, “Immortal Mind feeds the body with supernal freshness and fairness, supplying it with beautiful images of thought and destroying the woes of sense which each day brings to a nearer tomb” (p. 248). The effect of refusing to take a limited, material view of ourselves not only provides us with a clearer understanding of our unchanging spiritual nature, it also restores the body to health.

Through our growing spiritual understanding, Love makes us “new,” and we are each able to demonstrate this perpetual action at work in our lives daily.

By Juli Vice 

From the May 18, 2020 issue of the Christian Science Sentinel

Recently, when I was thinking about a familiar statement from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, the word all really stood out to me from the phrase “the test of all prayer.” The full passage says: “The test of all prayer lies in the answer to these questions: Do we love our neighbor better because of this asking? Do we pursue the old selfishness, satisfied with having prayed for something better, though we give no evidence of the sincerity of our requests by living consistently with our prayer? If selfishness has given place to kindness, we shall regard our neighbor unselfishly, and bless them that curse us; but we shall never meet this great duty simply by asking that it may be done” (p. 9). 

We might ask, “How does this apply to prayer regarding the healing of a physical condition? Aren’t I primarily trying to see myself as the spiritual idea of God and hold to that?” 

In praying for healing in Christian Science, we do start with God in order to understand our true nature as His spiritual reflection. So our prayers are primarily about healing thought, not about trying to fix a material body. We are praying to let divine Truth uncover and correct any error in our thought. And often that means praying to “love our neighbor”—other people—more. And it includes considering those questions that “test” our prayers.

Several years ago, while working in a public school, I was alerted to the popular thought that children are the biggest carriers of viruses, indiscriminately spreading dirt and harmful organisms on every surface they touch. At the time, the flu was affecting students and staff at the school, and I was listening to conversations about the issue and about how the adults needed to protect themselves.

I knew I needed to get a better perspective about the whole situation. As I prayed, I realized I was feeling annoyed by my coworkers. They seemed to be accepting that the students would just make us all sick and that we’d just have to deal with it. There seemed to be such an unloving attitude toward the students, viewing them as sick bodies instead of as people. I realized that this attitude was primarily based on fear, and that therefore my prayer about this situation needed to include how I was seeing not just the students but also the individuals working at the school.

My prayer became focused on recognizing everyone at the school as the image and likeness of a perfect, loving God, who created every aspect of the universe and saw it as good. I held my thought to the fact that God’s creation is purely spiritual, without any element of matter—harmful or otherwise—and that this creation includes each individual.

My annoyance lifted, and I had a clearer, higher view of my neighbor. I realized that this higher view, this love of my fellow man as the child of God, was a protection. I was confident that I would not become ill, and I did not. And the contagion lessened among the staff and students. Through this healing in my thought, I gained a greater love and appreciation for teenagers and my coworkers, which caused my work experience to be more harmonious and progressive.

Another time, I was praying about a physical injury. I had fallen hard on a boulder while on vacation with family, injuring my tailbone. My initial prayer was based on realizing the truth of this statement from Science and Health:“Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God’s unerring direction and thus bring out harmony” (p. 424). The pain lessened, and I was able to continue with our activities without hindrance for the rest of our time there.

When I got home, however, there was still some discomfort, and as I reached out to God in prayer to gain a better, more spiritual, view of God and of myself, I received an answer that brought me to tears: “You need to love her. Just love her.” Wow! Although at first that message seemed to come out of left field, I then realized that the “her” was a relative with whom I’d had a disagreement during that vacation regarding my parenting style. I had felt injured by comments that this individual had made.

Along with the realization that I needed to love my relative came the understanding that if God was telling me to love, then I was able to love her just as God does. At that moment, I was able to let go of pride and self-justification, and it was just natural to love her as God’s loved, loving, lovable child. A transformation had taken place in my thought. The pain left immediately, and I was completely healed of any sense of injury, emotional or physical. Since then, my relationship with this relative has grown stronger, and there has been a gentling between us, including a sweet thoughtfulness toward each other, which blesses the whole family.

One of the key factors in both of these healings was that I had to recognize and let go of erring, material views of my neighbor. When I was willing to rise up higher in thought—to let go of personal sense and let my thought be transformed out of a limited view of life in matter—I could see God, Spirit, and His spiritual creation correctly.

Such transformation of thought is a form of repentance. One definition of repent on Merriam-Webster.com is “to change one’s mind.” Christ Jesus told his followers to “repent: for the kingdom of heaven is at hand” (Matthew 4:17), and Mary Baker Eddy defines Kingdom of Heaven spiritually as “the reign of harmony in divine Science; the realm of unerring, eternal, and omnipotent Mind; the atmosphere of Spirit, where Soul is supreme” (Science and Health, p. 590). Our willingness to change our thought about our experience and our neighbor enables us to see and experience the reign of harmony.

When we understand that loving our neighbor and healing go hand in hand, we see that prayer is not for fixing something that’s wrong. Prayer lifts us higher in our understanding of God and enables us to see all of creation—which includes our neighbor and us—as spiritual and perfect, all good and harmonious.

By Juli Vice 

From The Christian Science Journal – September 15, 2014

Several years ago, when our family moved to a different state, we started hearing a common theme around town: that allergies were really bad in the area, and that people would suffer from allergic reactions even if they hadn’t had problems living elsewhere. It was such a widely held belief that I knew I had to challenge that line of thinking. I’ve learned, through my study of Christian Science, not to accept the concept of a creation that is material and flawed, and I began praying to know that no one is susceptible to beliefs based on a false concept of reality.

As I prayed, I thought a lot about the concept of allergic reaction. To me that word implies that we have some say over how things affect us. In other words, when some thing or some thought or circumstance comes across our path, we choose how we deal with it. We can choose to react, or we can turn our thought to the unchanging spiritual facts about God’s creation. We can choose to accept the idea that God, Spirit, created all and called it good (see Genesis 1:31) and, therefore, that our spiritual environment is good, harmonious, and completely harmless.

The material concept of life argues that we must live in submission to matter. For example, if common public thought is convinced that certain plants cause negative reactions, we suffer accordingly. In Christian Science, though, we learn to challenge material beliefs instead of accepting them. The process of examining our thought and turning it around is prayer. In her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul” (p. 269). So when something appears as an allergic reaction, we can find healing by taking the objects of sense—a material body separate from God that must suffer in a potentially harmful environment—and exchanging that material sense of things for the ideas of Soul: our real identity expressing the harmony of Spirit, and the spiritual universe, which is completely good. Prayer brings the sweet reminder that this is the only universe created by God.

We should expect to rejoice in the beauty of what nature represents.

Elsewhere in Science and Health Mrs. Eddy adds: “What an abuse of natural beauty to say that a rose, the smile of God, can produce suffering! The joy of its presence, its beauty and fragrance, should uplift the thought, and dissuade any sense of fear or fever. It is profane to fancy that the perfume of clover and the breath of new-mown hay can cause glandular inflammation, sneezing, and nasal pangs” (p. 175).

These ideas really helped me when it seemed that I was suffering from severe reactions to poison ivy. I started to feel that I was particularly susceptible to this problem and joked that it seemed as if all I had to do was look at a poison ivy plant and I’d get a rash! I definitely needed to get a better concept of myself and my environment. At one point the rashes appeared to be getting aggravated around the same time that I had become agitated about something going on in my branch Church of Christ, Scientist. This aggravation alerted me to the fact that my thought had become inflamed by what I was seeing and hearing, and that I was reacting to false beliefs about my fellow church members. Once I realized that these thoughts were just false beliefs about others—and not part of my own thinking—there was nothing left to react to! Very soon after, the rashes disappeared. I had realized that I had been allowing myself to react to false beliefs about God’s creation, and that I didn’t need to be influenced into believing in an evil creation of any kind. Since that time I haven’t had any reactions to poison ivy or to any allergens at all. These ideas have also helped me correct a false concept of myself as someone who can be reactive, knowing that because the one Mind is all-active, there cannot be a separate mind in opposition to that Mind.

We should expect to rejoice in the beauty of what nature represents: spiritual qualities such as grace, strength, and love. When we feel tempted by the belief that we are destined to suffer from allergies or from any discordant situation, we can challenge those thoughts with the truth that God’s allness includes only good, fills all space, and governs every aspect of our being. There can be no reaction to the action of God, omnipotent Mind, in whom “we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28). Mrs. Eddy echoes this thought when she writes: “The universe is filled with spiritual ideas, which He evolves, and they are obedient to the Mind that makes them” (Science and Health, p. 295).

When we recognize that God’s creation is the only reality, we can be confident that no matter how widely held a material belief is, it’s still only a belief—not a fact. Holding only to the first account of creation, in which “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31), we can also be confident that we live in that realm of perfect harmony!