If you’re like me, one of the big draws of the Sentinel is the true life stories of healing in each issue. I remember poring over the articles as a high-schooler. I especially liked it when the experiences had something to do with my life. I’m still like that.

But some things have changed.

It used to be that the sense of hope and promise I normally felt when reading Christian Science magazines or hearing about a good healing would occasionally give way to frustration and even despair. Especially when I’d been praying about something for a while. I read the testimonies and articles that spoke to me—sometimes over and over—but the same kind of dramatic changes I was reading about weren’t happening to me.

It didn’t seem fair. And honestly, I was envious.

It wasn’t like I was jealous every time I opened up a Christian Science magazine. If that were the case, I might have quit reading them. But sometimes when I felt discouraged, I felt an envious twinge.

And those twinges told me that I felt like I was missing out, that I wasn’t included. Not totally, anyway. Yes, I’d had healings, even big ones. Those proofs and the closeness I felt to God had kept me “in the game.” But that envy still grabbed my attention from time to time.

Looking back now, I can see that these feelings were another of the devil, or error’s, various disguises. Some of these disguises seem easier to recognize than others. For example, when I’m not feeling well, it’s usually easy enough to challenge those feelings and to see them as illegitimate. My basic understanding of God as good, and as the divine Love that sends only good, helps me recognize, often fairly quickly, that sickness is something I don’t have to buy into. I can see it as one of the devil’s tricks—the argument that I’m separate from God, or that God is somehow powerless to care for Her creation.

But for whatever reason, envy was a disguise I sometimes chose to ignore. It seemed easier to accept the idea that others were more fortunate, even “luckier,” than I was, or that maybe I wasn’t praying hard enough. Or in the right way. Whatever the argument, I never seemed to see those envious thoughts for what they were: A denial of God’s goodness and impartial, universal love.

During this period of my life, I was working at The Mother Church. Every week, I talked to people who shared their healings. They were fantastic, too. I still remember many of them, down to the last detail. What I heard was almost always inspiring, but sometimes I struggled with the feeling that I wanted those “easy” healings, too.

I worked with a colleague who never seemed frustrated. In fact, she was overjoyed by every single story. I asked her about her enthusiasm once, and she looked at me with a big beautiful smile on her face. “If it can happen to them,” she told me, “it means it can happen to me.” She really knew how to rejoice in everyone else’s good.

For whatever reason, envy was a disguise I sometimes chose to ignore.

That conversation helped me understand that other people’s healings weren’t benchmarks I had to live up to. They weren’t formulas I had to follow. But they were proofs that healing is possible. That there’s a science behind the physical change and moral regeneration that makes it possible for anyone to practice it and experience beneficial effects. And the innumerable healings that take place every day and that are shared online and in print remind us that Christian Science is a provable science!

That idea that there’s a reliable divine Principle that operates on everyone’s behalf, equally, really opened my eyes to what a farce envy is. Would I be jealous if someone could solve a calculus problem that I couldn’t? No way. I would know that the same principles of math that enabled a correct solution in their case would also bring light to mine.

Healing was no different. Even if I was dealing with the exact same situation as someone else, that didn’t mean that our experiences were going to be exactly the same, or that I needed to despair. God’s solution for me might not be identical, but it was there. I discovered that I didn’t want to take a shortcut or replicate someone else’s “God moment.” I wanted to experience the glory for myself.

And guess what? Not only could I count on God as Principle to be reliable, but Principle is also synonymous with Love. So I could also trust God to love me enough to show me the way. God, divine Love would never leave Her children alone to struggle—or to just work things out on their own.

And those God moments have come regularly. Big and small. I’ve come to expect them and be grateful for them even before they happen.

That leads me to mention the best antidote for envy that I know: gratitude. A heart that’s filled with a love for God has no room for envy. And since God gave each of us a heart to know Her, we are all created to rejoice in each other’s good.