A few years ago a neighbor said to me: "Christian Science might be good for a cold or when there is no need for immediate help. But what do you do if something of this kind happens to your child? Then you have to go to the doctor." This remark was made two summers ago while we were living in Massachusetts. Our three-year-old son hurt his leg very badly on the escalator of a local department store. My friend and her son, who are also Christian Scientists, were with us. The store officials insisted on immediate first aid. The nurse did not use medication because we told her we were Christian Scientists, but she urged us to go to a doctor for stitches when she saw the wide gap in the boy's leg. To impede the bleeding, she gave him a very tight dressing, which she said should be removed as quickly as possible. At the same time a Christian Science practitioner was asked for help by telephone.

My friend drove us to the Christian Science Benevolent Association, Chestnut Hill, Massachusetts, as the boy needed the help of a Christian Science nurse very urgently. Although children are not accepted there for nursing care, the nurses lovingly agreed to give him the proper dressing in this case of emergency. Their quiet assurance that Christian Science could heal this case was a great help. But when I told them that the medical nurse at the department store urged me to have the wound stitched, they told me that I had to decide what I wanted to do. At that moment, even as I had done while on the way to the Benevolent Association, I asked God to help me to make the right decision. Then I called the practitioner and told him that the child would receive the dressing of the leg by the Christian Science nurses and that he should be healed through Christian Science.

During the dressing of his leg, I was declaring every truth that came to my mind. The boy repeated with me the first two words of the Lord's Prayer, "Our Father," which he had learned in the Christian Science Sunday School. After that he slept for two hours. In the meantime my husband arrived. We both sat by the child's bed, studying the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. I asked God to show me how I could give our son the best care. Then I came across the following passage on page 487 in the textbook: "There is more Christianity in seeing and hearing spiritually than materially." I knew that to be Christian is to express the highest sense of love for another, and this meant to see him in his unhurt, perfect, spiritual identity. This I was willing to do. There were moments when I felt the presence of Truth and Love, as it is said in our textbook (p. 567): "Truth and Love come nearer in the hour of woe, when strong faith or spiritual strength wrestles and prevails through the understanding of God." There were also moments when I was haunted by the thought that our son's injury should have been avoided. But through the prayerful work of the practitioner the picture of the injury disappeared from my consciousness.