Article May 27, 1939 Issue

True Desire

JANET T. SCHAFER

We are told in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 1) that "desire is prayer." This leads us to ask ourselves, For what are we praying?

Whenever we have a need to apply the healing truths of Christian Science to some physical problem, what is our real desire? Just for physical healing? No! True prayer and real desire are not according to this pattern. True prayer is the longing to express more of God's perfection, to obey no law but His law, and to prove that there is only one God, good, and that man is the image and likeness of God. True prayer is the denial of all that is unlike good, the casting out of all that would deface and dethrone His image. It is the positive knowing that we are dwelling in the haven, the harmony, of Soul, and that there is no power, law, or intelligence that can separate us from God's love and protection. It is the conscious at-one-ment with divine Principle, Love, and the constant affirmation of man's heritage as the full and perfect expression of divine Mind. This prayer of positive knowing, this awakening to the forever fact that man preexisted and coexists as the perfect idea of Mind, and that nothing has power to separate him from God, reveals to us man's ever-present perfection.

Some years ago the writer had an experience which proved to her that when she turned her thought away from the human sense of anxiety and responsibility and prayerfully sought the Father's will, the Christ was present to heal completely and quickly. An infant daughter was having Christian Science treatment for a mastoid condition, and there seemed to be no improvement. Week after week went by, but the desired healing did not occur. Then, one day, when she was humbly listening for the Father's voice, our Leader's verse, "To the Big Children" (Poems, p. 69), came into thought:

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