Persistent prayer removes lump

Pauline Hutchinson

For over 20 years I'd had a small lump on my back. During that time I mostly forgot it was there and only occasionally prayed about having it healed. When I did pray for myself, it would involve remembering that God was caring for me, and that the only real growth I could undergo was the spiritual growth of understanding my relationship to God more clearly.

Then about five years ago, my husband and a friend and I went swimming at the local public swimming pool. When my husband saw my back, he told me that the growth had enlarged. We agreed that it was time to do something more about it. Because I'd relied on spiritual healing for many years and had been healed through Christian Science treatment and prayer, I reaffirmed that this was how I wanted to seek healing.

Every day I prayed specifically for myself, affirming that my identity was spiritual—that I was made in "the image and likeness of God" (Gen. 1:26, 27). I also held to this comforting thought from the Bible: "Behold, now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation"(II Cor. 6:2). It reminded me that right now I was, in God's eyes, healthy, unblemished, pure. I didn't have to wait to be healed. God knew that my identity was perfect in every way. So I, too, felt free to understand myself this way—right away.