Sandy loved the woods near her home, particularly in the spring of the year when trees were coming into bud and everything looked fresh and new. Every afternoon after school she walked in the woods, searching for dogtooth violets, spring beauties, and other delicately colored wildflowers. She knew all their names and pressed some of them in a scrapbook.

These were happy days for Sandy in the out-of-doors. She helped her mother with a little wildflower garden they had made at the edge of the woods. She gave the flowers extra water when they needed it and pulled out grass and weeds which crowded in among the lovely blooms.

One day when Sandy came home from the woods, she looked at her arm, which was bumpy and red, and said to her mother crossly: "I have poison ivy. I'm never going back into the woods again!" Mother suggested that they sit on the back porch and discuss what Christian Science could do about this problem. Through her study of Science Sandy was learning that she could trust God to meet her every need. She could depend on God the way Christ Jesus did.

Mother reminded her that God, good, is the only creator and that the Bible says, "God made the earth and the heavens, and every plant of the field before it was in the earth." ^{Gen. 2:4, 5;} Sandy herself remembered that "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." ^1:31;

"If God made every plant and made it good," said Mother, "He couldn't have made a poisonous plant." Everything made by God, Mind, is spiritual, harmless, and lovely; and by accepting a suggestion that a plant can be material and poisonous and cause itching, Sandy saw that she was accepting a lie about God's perfect creation. She remembered that she was herself a part of that creation and as God's perfect child she could not be touched by poison or any evil.

So Sandy agreed to try to stop looking at the arm and to remember the truth of God's perfect creation. But that night at bedtime, Sandy still wasn't healed; and she was tired of waiting.

"I want it to go away right now," Sandy said impatiently. Mother thought a moment. Then she began to talk about the wildflowers in their garden by the edge of the woods. She reminded Sandy that in order to see the flowers in their little garden, they had to pull out the weeds. Impatience and fear were just like weeds trying to crowd in where they didn't belong. Who wants to let little weeds of error grow big in their thinking!

"Why don't you get rid of those weeds, those impatient, fearful thoughts so God's harmonious thoughts can bloom just as they should?" Mother asked.

Sandy smiled. She didn't have to accept anything that wasn't from God! It wasn't real because God didn't make it. "I'm only going to listen to good thoughts, the angel messages from God, because they are beautiful like flowers" she told her mother. Just before she switched out the light, Mother read this verse from Mrs. Eddy's book, Science and Health: "Spirit and its formations are the only realities of being." ^{Science and Health, p. 264.}

During the next few days Sandy thought from time to time of all the good that Spirit forms. And one evening soon after, as she was putting on her sweater, Sandy showed Mother her arm. It was perfectly smooth, with no sign of a bumpy rash. "I'm glad we only have to accept good thoughts!" Sandy said, and added, "I'm going back to the woods now!"

And back to the woods she went without a bit of fear, to see what colorful new wildflowers had popped out. She knew that God is good and that only good awaited her.