One evening, when I was a child, as I lay in my bed I caught sight of a strange object. Straining to get a better view, I saw it move. It looked like a prehistoric reptile. I could have turned on the light, but instead I resolved to lie perfectly still and go unnoticed.

All through the night I watched the creature. A number of times I came to the conclusion that it must be asleep. However, as I would start to move my eyes, it would move—not much, but enough to let me know it was alert. I would find myself again staring through the darkness. It was a very long night. ...

When the sun began to come into the room, the creature stopped moving. Then —to my amazement—I found there was no creature. In the clear light of day all I saw, in the spot where my frightful captor had been, was my brother's baseball glove!

Should we always believe what we see? Christ Jesus gave us a definite answer to this question. According to the Bible, he said, "Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment" (John 7:24).

One day a leper came to Jesus and asked if he would heal him. The account of this event in the New Testament says, "Jesus, moved with compassion, put forth his hand, and touched him, and saith unto him, I will; be thou clean" (Mark 1:41). The man was healed immediately.

If Jesus had seen the man, in the way that other people saw him, he wouldn't have been able to heal him. The Master saw him instead as the whole, loved child of God. Jesus was conscious of the presence and reality of good, conscious that only those things that are made by God are truly real.

The Scriptures tell us, "All things were made by him [God]; and without him was not any thing made that was made" (John 1:3). God, good, is the only creator. Therefore all that has ever been created expresses His good nature. Disease and mortality have no place in the goodness of God and no place in man, God's likeness. They had no place in Jesus' pure, spiritual consciousness. This clear understanding of good as the substance of all being brought light to those upon whom Jesus' thought rested. As this powerful, spiritual light of divine Truth illumined human consciousness, it dissolved the false sense of disease and brought healing.

Looking at the material evidence— those things that are presented to the physical senses—instead of holding to the spiritual evidence of the ever-present goodness of God, we are like a child in the dark, held prisoner by an imaginary captor. In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, writes, "The universe, like man, is to be interpreted by Science from its divine Principle, God, and then it can be understood; but when explained on the basis of physical sense and represented as subject to growth, maturity, and decay, the universe, like man, is, and must continue to be, an enigma" (p. 124).

Are we just ignoring problems when we look away from the material picture? No, not if we are turning to God to understand what is really going on under His government. When we look away from the material appearance and look to God for a clearer understanding of Him and of our relationship to Him, we are taking the needed action. We are letting in more of the light of Truth, and the faulty night vision of a life bound to matter is cleared away. We discover that in the spiritual reality of being there is no captor, no evil of any kind.

But how can we take our eyes off of our so-called captor when it appears so real and powerful, when it holds us spellbound through the night, and the light of day seems long in coming? Recently I had an opportunity to find an answer to these questions. Reading the local newspaper, I became overwhelmed. The paper was filled with graphic accounts of violent gang activity, rape, murder, and poverty. I had picked up the paper to see what was going on in the community that needed prayer, but the images of evil were so frightening that I found myself in a terrible struggle. I desired the light of God's goodness but was held captive by the aggressive suggestion that man's life is separated from God.

Looking to the Bible for help and encouragement, I found good counsel in the book of Psalms: "Offer unto God thanksgiving; and pay thy vows unto the most High: and call upon me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify me" (50:14, 15).

As I considered these verses, I could see I had not been "paying my vows" to God. Through fear, I was accepting the illusion of life in matter as real and powerful. I was forgetting that God, good, is the only genuine power. Instead of taking hold of harmonious spiritual reality—letting in the light—I was accepting the discordant material picture as valid and finding myself "staring through the darkness," as I had done as a child.

I turned to God in prayer, and I began to see more clearly what was truly going on. I was in fact living in the arms of man's ever-present Parent, infinite Love. Nothing could separate me, or anyone, from divine Love, no matter how awful one's circumstances might seem. And the clear realization of this truth could bring healing to a troubled situation. I felt tremendous gratitude to God for His constant loving care for His children; gratitude that we all are in these all-powerful, loving arms, and always have been; gratitude that life separate from God, good, the only creator, is impossible, is an illusion, because man is His spiritual likeness. The fear was gone, and I was glorifying God.

With renewed strength I then was able to carry on with my prayer and specifically confront the different difficulties that were presented in the paper. I knew these prayers would contribute to healing. As a student of Christian Science, I had often turned to God in times of need and had found prayer to be a powerful, reliable help in healing physical illness and restoring harmony.

For example, one night our son came into our bedroom and was quite disturbed. He said his leg hurt, and he asked my husband and me to pray for him. As the three of us prayed—opening our thought to God's goodness—the gentle, spiritual light of Truth poured into my consciousness. I could see that there is only one power—God, good; and in the infinite goodness of God there is no pain or danger.

I realized that in spite of the illusive material evidence, our son's relationship to God was secure and undisturbed. In a short time the pain was gone and the child was sleeping normally. The difficulty never returned.

We do not need to be afraid to leave the limited, material view of existence behind. As we embrace spiritual reality—life in and of God—we will see more clearly what is true, and healing will take place. With God as our starting point, we are in a position of dominion rather than subjection.

When the all-powerful light of God illumines our thought, we will no longer be fooled by shadowy images of sickness and discord. We will find ourselves in the "morning" of spiritual revelation, in the pure consciousness of God's goodness and of our uninterrupted well-being.