A dictionary explains that the word "chronic" comes from a Greek word meaning "concerning time" and gives this definition: "Continuing for a long time;... Hence (of an invalid or of one having an unpleasant habit or characteristic...), having long had the affliction or habit." We hear of chronic fear, chronic doubt, chronic illness, or even chronic grumbling.

In Christian Science we learn that all discord, whether it seems to have had a long history or is called acute, stems from a false notion that there is a mind or creative power which can produce or maintain evil. To gain and maintain health we learn to start with an understanding of the spiritual fact that God is the only power or Mind governing man and that the Christ, Truth, is always available to destroy whatever claims to contradict this fact. We accept the declaration in Genesis (1:31), "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good."

It follows that a chronic or recurring trouble is only an acceptance of the mistaken belief that there is a mind or power which can cause and then perpetuate inharmony. To believe that a power apart from God can exist, can be true, or could have been true is not the method of healing which Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, has taught. In "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 397) in one short sentence she gives us this explicit instruction: "To heal the sick, one must be familiar with the great verities of being."

Christian Science does not maintain that to heal the sick one must become familiar with or accept as true a power apart from God which could cause illness or discord. It makes plain that we must know reality, the truth, the great verities of being. We must know that God, divine Mind, is the only power, the only presence, the only law.

How can we heal what is termed chronic colds? Would we start from the assumption that a warped, negative, unhappy mortal mind is cause? Certainly not! Would we try to heal an illusion by declaring that it has always been true?

It may sometimes seem a little more difficult to approach the overcoming of a chronic difficulty with the same expectation and freshness that we have when we are being forced to meet some acute trouble. We may allow ourselves to think, "It has been going on for a long time, and I can get down to earnest prayerful work later on." This would only foster a chronic state of sluggish thinking that puts off until tomorrow what needs to be done now.

"Acute and chronic beliefs reproduce their own types" (ibid., p. 246). This significant statement shows how important it is to understand that no physical ailment has actually ever had a beginning. No matter what its type or symptoms may appear to be, chronic or acute, it never has been true. That which was only an illusion in mortal mind yesterday has no power to recur or manifest itself today.

Today's belief may look like the same trouble as yesterday's and may feel the same, but it is only a belief that discord was once real. What seems to be a chronic trouble is only a mortal mind opinion, a notion that you or someone else once had such a trouble.

Here is another statement from Science and Health that points to the importance of maintaining the uplifted spiritual state of consciousness which shuts out uninvited mortal mind suggestions (p. 153):"We weep because others weep, we yawn because they yawn, and we have smallpox because others have it; but mortal mind, not matter, contains and carries the infection."

The remedy for aggressive suggestion is always to awaken to the fact that there is only one Mind; that actually there is no mortal mind to contain or transmit mental contagion. Because God, Spirit, is eternal good and fills all space, there is no room in His ever-presence for the coming and going of good. There is no cause or source for a chronic trouble in the ever-presence of God, good.

The general belief that children must eventually have certain contagious diseases is in a way only a chronic state of human thought. This mistaken opinion is refuted and overcome again and again by parents who understand and accept humbly and reverently the truth that there is no power or law which can reverse the divine plan of continuous right activity for God's children. His children are perpetually under His care.

The ninety-first Psalm promises a sure reward to those who learn to dwell "in the secret place of the most High" in these words: "Because thou hast made the Lord, which is my refuge, even the most High, thy habitation; there shall no evil befall thee, neither shall any plague come nigh thy dwelling."

In Christian Science we never ignore things which we do not like and wish we did not have. Whenever we are tempted to believe that some discord, no matter how-small or how serious it seems to be, has had a long history, we are only having an opportunity to know that evil has never really existed anywhere and that there is no mind or power which can create or perpetuate chronic disease. In all our healing work we need to be sure that we are gaining an understanding that there can be no lapse from harmony in the experience of God's image and likeness.