Not an echo

Judith Ann Hardy

Grandma was visiting us, and she asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up. "A Christian Science practitioner like you," I said. (That means she helped people through prayer when they asked her to. She understood how prayer heals, and her name was listed in The Christian Science Journal.) Grandma smiled and said I didn't have to wait until I was big to begin to learn how to be a Christian Science practitioner. "Start right now," she said.

I must have looked surprised because she asked me to bring her my "books" (she meant my Bible and Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy—I had my own set, red ones). I got them, and she showed me the Cross and Crown seal on the front of Science and Health, with what Jesus said written around it—"Heal the sick raise the dead cleanse the lepers cast out demons" (see Matt. 10:8). Then she showed me a place inside Science and Health where Mrs. Eddy says children can heal too (see page 37, lines 22–25).

"What you know of God right now is enough to heal," she told me. "But you have to know it, not just say it. An echo repeats the words; but you must understand what the words actually mean, and that heals." Then she asked me, "What do you know of God?"