I have attended Sunday School since I was a small child, and what I've learned has helped me a lot in confronting difficulties that come up in my daily life.

About five years ago, when I was helping my aunt make pancakes, I carelessly picked up the pancake iron in the wrong place and burned five fingers. I started to cry, and ran home and told my mom what had happened. My hand was red and stung a lot, so I thought it would be a good idea to plunge it into water. But I didn't feel the relief I expected. I got very worried because school finals were starting that week.

My mother immediately remembered a testimony that had been published in The Herald of Christian Science. It talked about how a plastic flower is captivating and real-looking, but actually is a counterfeit and has no sensation at all. The plastic flower was compared with sickness. So I saw how, in spite of the shocking evidence of a burn. I could still hold firmly to the understanding of my spiritual nature, which, as the reflection of divine Spirit, could not feel a burning sensation or be damaged. I acknowledged that there was no pain in Spirit and that all was perfect in Spirit's control. I affirmed this spiritual truth and concentrated only on God and on the perfection of His creation. I also understood that nothing could prevent Mind from expressing itself during the finals.

I made an effort to silently disagree with what people at school were saying to me about my hand stinging and going through a gradual restoration process that was considered normal in the case of a burn.

I read the Christian Science Bible Lesson and tried to assimilate as much as I could of its message, as a way of fortifying my prayers even more. In this way I was able to completely tune out thoughts of the burn. Soon, the few blisters that had appeared on my fingers dried up without causing me any pain. Two days later, I was able to take a school exam without any physical difficulty. In fact, I took all my finals without any problem. Also, I never had any scars.

I'm very grateful for testimonies and articles with spiritual ideas that always help me a lot, and also for the teachings of Christian Science, for increasingly strengthening my faith in God's love.

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This article was adapted from the Portuguese Herald, O Arauto da Ciencia Crista

Lonie Fonseca lives in Brazil.

Last December, I was spending a lot of time cramming for finals and trying to get all my past work done to turn in. Math was the worst. I'd always struggled with math in general. I thought I couldn't understand the concepts, so I tended to just give up.

A week before finals, I went to my math teacher and asked if he would do a pass/no pass grade for the course so at least an F wouldn't show up on my transcript. He told me that if I continued to come to class and try my best, if I still failed, then he would agree.

Together, we figured out that I needed an 85 percent on my final to pass the class with even the lowest C. Since the highest grade I'd made on a math test so far that term was a 58 percent, I was sure this was not going to happen.

While I was talking to two Christian Science Sunday School teachers I know, I told them how worried I was about finals, especially the math test. One of them said she'd had a similar difficulty with understanding her school materials. She explained to me that she kept praying to understand that the divine Mind that inspired the math textbook and knew the concepts was the same Mind that she—and I—expressed.

I thought about this as I continued to study. I had always been worried about memorizing formulas and knowing which ones to use and when. I began to realize that I could depend on God, divine Mind, to show me what I needed to know.

The morning of our test, my teacher passed it out, and on the top was a "cheat sheet," a list of the formulas we'd need. I thought my prayers had been answered. About halfway through the test, though, I realized that I hadn't used the formula sheet at all. Wow! This was a real breakthrough for me.

I was the third one to finish my test and left the class feeling refreshed. The day after the test, I received an e-mail from my teacher saying that I got a 93 percent on the final and passed the course. He added that he was proud of me for pushing myself to my fullest.

After the scare of possibly not being able to pass my math class, I decided that I didn't ever want to feel that everything was out of control again. When I'm feeling out of control like that, there's no way I can feel close to God.

So I found two ideas that I think of as often as I can to keep myself close to God.

Knowing that everything is spiritual and is always in harmony is one idea that helps me quite a bit. I no longer struggle to get things done at the last minute. I rely on God's goodness to guide me in day-to-day life. Whenever I start to stress out about getting everything done, I always think about God creating everything good around us in one week, as the first book of Genesis tells us in the Bible.

I can't help but think that He needed a very organized plan to create everything and to make it perfect. So last term, when faced with the fear that I didn't have enough time to do everything good that I wanted and needed to do, I turned to this message in the Bible. It's from Romans: "All things work together for good to them that loveGod" (8:28). This is put so simply, and it has really helped me in every part of my life.

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Adapted from a blog on tmcyouth.com.