My husband (a college administrator) and I (a college speech and English teacher) were often told by students that they were asked by a psychology teacher to observe us because we are Christian Scientists. Most of what we heard about this observation was that we were two of the happiest, most joyous individuals they'd ever observed. They concluded that Christian Science must have had a lot to do with that!

Christian Science is a complete way of life. It touches every facet of our experience. To be happy and joyous is very natural for students of this Science. And to be healthy is very natural, too.

At one time, though, I was told by one of my students: "Go home. You have walking pneumonia." Perhaps I had been concentrating too much on just getting to class and teaching and hadn't taken enough time to pray about this particular problem that obviously bothered at least this one student.

So, when the student called my attention to the need for healing, I made arrangements for a substitute teacher, went home, climbed into bed—and almost immediately felt much worse. I had allowed the word pneumonia to frighten me. I called a Christian Science practitioner to treat me through prayer.

I needed to have practical proof that disease is neither a power nor a presence, because God, in His infinite greatness and goodness, is the only real power and presence there is. I also needed to know, without one single doubt, that psychology students observing me, or a teacher assigning me as a "project" to be observed, had absolutely no power to make me ill. If I believed they could, then I was truly breaking the First Commandment and having more than one God! I knew that without reservation, I could deny a mind or power or presence apart from God, who is divine Mind.

I got very busy praying and declaring God's allness. There can't possibly be more than All. You can't add nor subtract from God's allness. Now since I knew this is divine law, not supposition, it had all the power of this wonderful truth of God's allness behind it. Nothing could control me but my loving Father-Mother God, who wants only good for His children. And I—and everyone else—am one of those beloved children. This is our wonderful heritage from our divine and only real Parent: perfection, and purely spiritual identity, because our Parent is infinite Spirit. No false belief of life in a material body could make me sick.

Christian Science teaches that we are to handle all false beliefs within our own thought. These false beliefs called sickness, or the beliefs that somehow someone else has the power to make us ill, have no more power than the power of illusion.

One of the most important synonyms for God in my own experience has been that of divine Mind. Since God is One, the allness of the universe, then that one divine Mind, must be the only Mind there is. It is impossible to be obedient to the First Commandment and still believe there are many evil minds capable of harming us in some way.

Needless to say, when the fear of a word called pneumonia, was seen for what it was—not a presence or power, because God is the only presence and power—and when I was willing to acknowledge God as the only real Mind there is, then my healing came within a couple of days.

The healing had to first take place within my own conscious awareness of God as everyone's true Parent. I had to see each and every one of us as God's spiritual, perfect idea, not capable of wrong thinking or acting, because each of us can only express the Mind that is God. Fear disappeared when I embraced all mankind in the Love that is our Father-Mother God.

The master Christian, Christ Jesus, admonished us to love our neighbor as ourselves. We are obedient to that command as we make a concerted effort to claim that the real source of intelligence—for ourselves and for each individual—is the divine Mind, God. Then, and then only, are we being obedient to the First Commandment, having one God, one creator, the only true Parent of each and every one of us. God, as Father-Mother, unites us in harmony, in obedience to His laws, His perfect control of His kingdom, because that's the only kingdom there is.

Joanne Ward Humbert
Arlington, Texas