"No other child experienced the non-disease"

When our daughter was about 4 years old, I was told that one of the neighborhood children had chicken pox. The parents did not quarantine this child. At first I was upset because I thought the parents were not being responsible. Initially in my prayer I worked to overcome resentment toward them. Then I prayed for protection for all the children. Quite suddenly as I was praying about this, the thought came so strongly, almost as a voice, “There is NO CHICKEN POX.” Well, that was it! I honestly did not give it another thought. The child continued to play with the other children, but that was the end of the chicken pox in the neighborhood. No other child experienced the non-disease.

In her sophomore year of high school one of the girls on my daughter’s cheerleading squad contracted spinal meningitis and subsequently passed on. There was great fear expressed by others as the girls had shared a drink from the same water bottle. We don’t know if it was diagnosed as a contagious form of the disease or not, but the fear because of the passing was very contagious and spread through the community. We were told that there was an antidote to take for prevention, but our daughter decided to rely on Christian Science. As I remember, in her thought fear was not present, only calm.

I don’t remember the specific truths we used, but I recall we had the support of a practitioner and that the Committee on Publication for our state was in frequent contact during this time. This is because it transpired at a public high school and was in the newspapers and the media. As with the chicken pox, there was no transmission of this disease to any member of the cheerleading squad or in the girls’ families or other students.

This same daughter had a very quick healing of shingles. It was diagnosed by a doctor, because at the time she was a teacher and wanted to comply with the law regarding contagion. We prayed about this, and it was uncovered that she was feeling a lot of stress in her professional and personal lives. As she realized this, the fear was dissolved and so were shingles and stress in a matter of days. At the time I did not know much about shingles, but have since learned that this condition can last weeks and even months with medications.

I am very grateful for Mary Baker Eddy and her tireless work to bring us Christian Science.