Article June 29, 2009 Issue

a reliable healing foundation

BY LISA MCCANLESS

THE STUDY of Christian Science has opened my thoughts to experience the reliable goodness and healing promised in the Bible. I can recall some of my own childhood experiences, where the prayers of my parents, together with those of a Christian Science practitioner, brought healings of a broken arm and third-degree burns over my hand, to name a few. So I grew up expecting healings through prayer.

I also felt that God would guide me in parenthood, too. For me, the model for parenting could be found in the tender and mighty care of God illustrated in many Bible stories. And being a parent gave me ample opportunity to practice and prove the scientific healing method taught in Christian Science. I increasingly gained trust that God was the one in charge and created His children complete with everything they needed—such as joy, health, harmony, wisdom, purity, completeness. But I had an important role too; I had to listen for the messages from God that spoke to this fact and hold firmly to the conviction that our family could all witness proof of these spiritual truths in practical ways.

In the late 1980s, when my daughter was in fifth grade, I took her to a standard dental checkup and cleaning. The dentist told me she had some baby teeth that were not coming out, and he wanted me to take her to an orthodontist to determine when braces should be applied in order to correct the problem these teeth were posing to the rest of her mouth.