As A Meeting I was attending turned into a discussion of spirituality in healthcare, the group became more and more lively. We were inspired by experiences in which prayer had healed others and ourselves.

One woman commented on how tired she was of hearing that the answer to better health was more medication. "It's not like we're chemical experiments," she said. Everyone in the group agreed.

The woman's cry makes a point many will identify with. We know instinctively we're not simply physical machines. Many are also realizing the extent to which the mind affects the body. Consequently they don't always find satisfaction or healing through an approach to healthcare that is simply physical or material. They're looking to a more holistic approach—one that also heals spiritually and morally.

The research of today's holistic healthcare explorers increasingly supports revelations from the Bible. These revelations explain that God is Spirit and that we are made in God's likeness, as His spiritual idea. Taking the standpoint that everyone's true nature is spiritual and perfect leads us to a perfect and complete system of healthcare.

Important lessons about healthcare go as far back as the Bible. Christ Jesus' approach to it was loaded with valuable lessons that are practical today. According to the New Testament record, Jesus' approach to healing grew out of his understanding of God and of man's relation to God. It was a spiritual basis for health.

Mary Baker Eddy learned a lot about restoring people's health in the way Jesus did. Through caring for herself and others, she found that the root of the difficulty was not in a material body so much as in the troubled and "diseased" thoughts of the patient. From reading the Bible, she learned that the sick are cured through spiritual means. And her metaphysical method for healing—Christian Science—has proved that to be true over and over again, for generations.

Spiritual care is care for the whole person. It's administered mentally and spiritually, but the healing power is not in the human mind. Mrs. Eddy's textbook on the Science of mental healing explains, "The scientific government of the body must be attained through the divine Mind" (Science and Health, p. 167). The healer recognizes that God is the only Mind or Life, and is conscious of only good. Discovering that this divine Mind is actually one's own, and everyone else's, transforms human consciousness, with the outcome of renewing both mind and body.

Two years ago, I began having regular bouts with a painfully stiff neck. Lying down, sitting, and standing were uncomfortable. I did not take medication, even for temporary relief, because I felt that would have preoccupied me with addressing the symptoms and distracted me from the root of the problem, which was mental—an error, or a misunderstanding of God's place in my life.

I didn't want to ignore the problem, or just suffer through it. I wanted the mental and spiritual transformation that would bring a cure, so I focused on understanding my relation to God. My wife helped with my physical needs, and we both searched for a clearer recognition of God's care and direction.

Months went by, and I eventually came to see more of God's care in my life and my career. I realized that I was not alone and didn't need to feel burdened. God was caring for me. He sustained me and was, in fact, the real source of my activity. As a result of this spiritual discovery, the physical problem disappeared. I also think I'm even a better person to be around now!

Such care for the whole person doesn't only relieve symptoms, as significant as that is; it helps reveal God's image, the true being of each one of us, made with integrity, strength, peace, and complete well-being.

There's a spiritual awakening that is gradually dissolving the common belief in a material origin and basis for life, and it is ending the cruel consequences that accompany this belief. This awakening is transforming lives, healthcare, and the whole world in the process.