The slam Rob gave the front door on arriving home from school expressed his feelings perfectly! Wedged between the pages of his math book lay his six-weeks report card with, as he put it, "a big fat F" in geometry.

He had purposely missed the school bus and walked home—a distance of several miles. The walking, he felt, would help get rid of the shock and dismay. But it hadn't.

His mother heard the door slam and came in to see what the problem was. Rob mumbled a "Hi," walked past her, and headed right for his room. When troubled he often went to his room and took out the Bible and Science and Health. He'd attended the Christian Science Sunday School since he was three and knew that Science could help with this situation as well as with physical problems.

He turned to one of his favorite passages in Science and Health, where Mrs. Eddy writes, "Whatever is governed by God, is never for an instant deprived of the light and might of intelligence and Life." ^{Science and Health, p.215;} It wasn't easy, though, for him to concentrate on what he was reading. One thought kept intruding: "My teacher doesn't like me. Why should I even try?" And there was another: "Some kids are just smarter than others. I'll never understand geometry!"

Although these thoughts were phrased in the first person singular—"I"—and seemed to originate in him, Rob suddenly laughed. "Oh, I get it," he said aloud. "This is what we were talking about in class last Sunday. These suggestions don't belong to me—they come in the guise of my own thoughts."

He reached for his Concordance to Mrs. Eddy's writings, a book his class had been learning to use. After finding the word "guise," he turned to The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, where Mrs. Eddy says: "Watch, and pray daily that evil suggestions, in whatever guise, take no root in your thought nor bear fruit. Ofttimes examine yourselves, and see if there be found anywhere a deterrent of Truth and Love, and 'hold fast that which is good.'" ^{Miscellany, pp.128—129;}

"Well," he mused, "it's obvious these thoughts aren't mine. They come straight from that nobody, the devil, who tried so hard to tempt Jesus." He remembered Christ Jesus' rebuke, "Get thee hence, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God, and him only shalt thou serve," ^{Matt. 4:10.} and how the devil had then left him.

Rob's mother heard him say firmly, "Out! Out! Out!" A little later his door quietly opened. With a smile on his face, he peered into the room where she was sewing. She knew he was ready to talk. "Come in," she said. "I can see you're on top of things."

Rob poured it all out. How his first six weeks in high school had been a whole new encounter. How he'd been so engrossed in making new friends and in trying to get a spot on various teams that he hadn't applied himself in geometry. The failing grade had been a real surprise. He hadn't realized geometry required so much work.

"Mom," he confessed, "I came home today very angry with my teacher. I thought she didn't like me. I also felt that maybe I just wasn't as smart as the other kids. But, you know, I suddenly remembered what we'd discussed in Sunday School—how when evil thoughts seem to whisper, we're sometimes fooled into thinking they're our own. But whatever doesn't come from our one source, God, isn't truly ours, is it?"

"Exactly, Rob," his mom replied. "And when we stick to the facts—that we perfectly reflect a perfect God—we can prove what is ours. That failing grade was just a needed warning. I can tell now you've got the situation well in hand. Things will be different the next six weeks. I know they will."

And they were. Rob spent many hours on his homework and even enjoyed the challenge of learning a new phase of mathematics. The failing grade became a B after the second six weeks, and an A after the third six weeks. He felt he'd learned an important point in Christian Science. Evil thoughts don't belong to us. When we refuse to accept them and claim only what comes from God, limitations crumble.