One morning many years ago, shortly after I arrived at my job as a sales clerk in a department store, I began to feel unwell. The news media had announced that flu season was upon us and had been describing the symptoms in graphic detail. Some of my coworkers were out sick, and others were reporting back to work with lingering coughs.

Since sales were slow in the china and bridal registry department where I worked, the manager decided we would spend the day dusting and reorganizing stock. “Cheers,” I muttered to myself as I eyed the many shelves of dishes and glassware. I already felt exhausted. But having experienced healings in Christian Science, I knew I could find relief through prayer.

From the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, I had learned that spiritual man—the true identity of each of us—is the expression of God’s goodness and includes perfect health. Christian Science explains that God, Spirit, is the only real creator, and that He didn’t make disease, so it has no real power over His children. God’s law of harmony governs all of God’s creation down to the tiniest detail, and no part of that creation is capable of running amok and causing harm. Therefore, symptoms of disease are not of God but are merely false mental suggestions—and we have God-given authority to dispute them rather than accepting illness as inevitable.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mrs. Eddy writes: “Instead of blind and calm submission to the incipient or advanced stages of disease, rise in rebellion against them. Banish the belief that you can possibly entertain a single intruding pain which cannot be ruled out by the might of Mind, and in this way you can prevent the development of pain in the body. No law of God hinders this result” (p. 391).

As I was praying along these lines, a question suddenly popped into my thought: “You were feeling fine on the way to work this morning; the symptoms didn’t start until after you arrived; what have you been thinking about since you got here?”

God’s law of harmony governs all of God’s creation down to the tiniest detail, and no part of that creation is capable of running amok and causing harm. 

Nothing good, I had to admit. For weeks I’d been entertaining a lot of critical thoughts about the manager. Around the time I was hired, the department began transitioning to a more automated system for ordering merchandise. The manager had decided I would be one of the first clerks to learn the new computer system, and she had trained me herself. The problem was, she had only a sketchy understanding of the new ordering procedure, so there were a lot of gaps in my training. Whenever I needed to ask her a question about inputting an order, which was many times a day, she would bristle at the interruption. And often she didn’t know the answer anyway, so I would have to guess what to do.

Not surprisingly, I made mistakes. The computer rejected many of my orders, which led to delays. The customers were unhappy that their bridal gifts were late, and the manager seemed to be perpetually irritated with me. After weeks of feeling blamed for problems that weren’t my fault, I had built up quite a grudge against the boss.

But that morning, in the light of prayer, I saw that resentment was not only unhelpful; it was also unhealthy. It was blocking my ability to feel God’s healing presence. I realized I was angry because I was accepting the thought that bad could be more powerful than ever-present God, good. And just as God didn’t create illness, He didn’t create an unkind, unfair, or irritable person.

If we believe it’s possible to become a victim of evil in the form of unkindness and injustice, then we must also believe it’s possible to become a victim of disease. Yet, regardless of the human situation we seem to be in, the spiritual truth is that God is perfect, and so is His spiritual creation. And we don’t need to wait for our situation to change before we accept this truth. We can exchange a mistaken, negative view of ourselves and others for the spiritual perception of man as God’s flawless expression and begin to experience the blessings of that correct, Christlike view.

In the light of prayer, I saw that resentment was not only unhelpful; it was also unhealthy.

For the rest of the day, while I did my assigned cleaning chores, I gave my thought a thorough cleaning, too. I corrected the false mental picture of myself and my manager as fallible mortals at odds with each other. Instead, I affirmed that God gave each of us the ability to express His qualities, such as grace, justice, and lovingkindness. Rather than expecting my boss to have all the answers and feeling frustrated when she didn’t, I acknowledged that God, infinite Mind, is the source of all intelligence. As I shifted my trust to God, I felt a new confidence that He would guide both my manager and me and provide the insight we needed to do our work wisely, accurately, and harmoniously.

This prayer inspired me with peace and joy. Negative thinking and resentment melted away, and I felt uplifted. As I continued my prayer through the day, I felt better physically, too. My energy returned, and the flu symptoms faded. By the end of the workday, I felt perfectly well. 

Science and Health instructs us to address moral as well as physical issues in our prayer for healing. On page 419 it states: “A moral question may hinder the recovery of the sick. Lurking error, lust, envy, revenge, malice, or hate will perpetuate or even create the belief in disease. . . . Your true course is to destroy the foe, and leave the field to God, Life, Truth, and Love, remembering that God and His ideas alone are real and harmonious.”

During the week or two after my healing, my relationship with the manager improved greatly. I found that I had a more intuitive sense of how to input orders, so there was less need to ask for help, and there were fewer mistakes. And when I did go to the boss with a question, she answered with a smile. 

What I learned from this experience is that prayer uncovers moral mistakes, not to attach blame or guilt to anyone but to shine a light by which we can discern what’s true about ourselves and others and reject what’s untrue. And correcting error with truth brings freedom to both mind and body.