Editorial September 10, 1979 Issue

More meaningful healings

NATHAN A. TALBOT

Healings, brought about as a result of prayer, are meaningful to any of us. But exactly what do such healings mean? Often they mean we are free from pain or fear or lack. And we are usually grateful for that—at least we certainly should be. But sometimes the attention we focus on freedom from material discord overshadows the most important aspect of the healing. There's a point here worth considering: better recognizing and appreciating the spiritual truths that underlie the physical change.

Scientific prayer—that is, prayer based on fixed eternal truths of God and man—brings clarity to our view of reality. Discords in our life are graphic pictures of erring mortal thought. These discords are distorted views of true, harmonious being. Harmony is the law of God. True prayer initiates a conversion in consciousness. Temporary, erring thoughts drop from view, and Christ brings to the fore divine harmony, pure spiritual thoughts.

Pain or any other kind of inharmony is a symptom of discordant—ungodlike—thought. When, through prayer, we reach out to God, good, and sufficiently concede His supremacy and the power-lessness of evil, both the symptoms and their cause disappear. It is important to be grateful that the difficulty has dissolved. But it's even more important to be grateful for the spiritual truths that caused it to be ousted. Otherwise, we may have this larger, more important lesson—the true significance of the healing—to learn again at a later time. It's not really enough just to be glad we can go about our daily lives again, free of discord.

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