For several months there had been a hard lump in the middle of Jennifer's right heel. When she walked on the ball of her foot, the lump didn't bother her. But sometimes she would forget and step on the heel. Then she would cry, "Ouch!"

Whenever Mother heard her say "ouch," she would say, "Jennifer, I think it's time you got to work on that."

Jennifer knew that her mother meant it was time for her to use her understanding of Christian Science, which heals as Christ Jesus did, to get rid of the lump. However, it didn't bother her much, and she was very busy. "I know, Mom," she'd say. "I will, but I haven't time right now."

So the days went by, and school let out. Jennifer, with her mother, father, and younger sister and brother, went to the beach on vacation, as they did every year. It was always great fun, and Jennifer had been eagerly looking forward to it.

It was night when they reached the cottage. David had already fallen sound asleep in the car. Jennifer and Amy were happy to go to bed as soon as they had helped Dad bring in the luggage and made their beds. They hardly had time to enjoy the sound of the surf before they too were sound asleep.

In the morning, as soon as breakfast was eaten, dishes done, and beds made, the whole family gaily headed for the beach. It wasn't long before Jennifer discovered that being at the beach wasn't as much fun as she had expected. When she walked in the soft sand, her feet sank in so far that her heels touched the sand at every step. In the ocean the waves pushed her around so that she kept losing her balance and landing on her right heel. She remembered all the times her mother had offered to help her heal the lump, and she wished she had listened.

Finally she sat thinking quietly a few moments, letting sand slip through her fingers. She smiled a little as she wondered, "How do you heal a heel?" She knew that God loved her and wouldn't make anything to hurt her. Then she noticed the holes her feet had made in the sand, and her smile grew wider. She had the answer.

She remembered studying what Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter." ^{Science and Health, p. 468;} Jennifer said to herself, "So my heel has no more intelligence to say that it hurts than that sand has to complain when we walk on it. The heel and the sand are both matter, and neither one has any intelligence to complain."

Jennifer had been so busy exploring the ideas coming to her that she didn't realize that her father and Amy were speaking to her until a beach ball bounced off her foot.

"Hey, Dreamer, want to play ball with us?" Dad asked.

"Sure," Jennifer said, jumping to her feet. She ran down the beach, telling herself firmly that she was not going to be fooled about pain anymore.

At first it was difficult not to believe that her foot hurt, but she continued to remind herself that the foot had no more intelligence to complain than the sand had. Soon she forgot all about her foot.

That night as Jennifer washed her feet before going to bed she noticed that the lump was gone. There wasn't even a mark to show where it had been. She ran to show her parents. She felt a little like the man in the Bible who had been lame and was healed by Peter and went "walking, and leaping, and praising God." ^{Acts 3:8.}

"Look, Mom," she said excitedly. "It's all gone! It was really bothering me at the beach this morning, so I decided it was time to stop being fooled."

Mom gave her a big hug. "I'm so grateful," she said. "I am, too," Jennifer agreed. "Wait till I tell my Sunday School teacher! She keeps telling us that Christian Science can heal anything but it's up to us to prove it." She laughed. "Wait till I tell her that I proved I could heal a heel!"