These were the earnest words of a visitor at the Christian Science Reading Room where I served as librarian. Although I could not know exactly what he meant, the crux of these types of questions tends to be, “Is God real?” or, “How could healing through prayer be possible?” I assured him that healing through prayer as I had experienced it in Christian Science isn’t happenstance.

When someone is healed through prayer, we are seeing tangible evidence of the reality of God’s, Spirit’s, perfect creation in our experience. Prayer in Christian Science is about more than the surface need for a physical ailment to be healed. It’s about seeing our true, spiritual nature as the expression of God, Spirit, who is the sole source of harmony. Healing through prayer is not a coincidence, but is bringing this infinite and universal harmony to light in our thought and, ultimately, in our health and experience.

Some assume, though, that if it isn’t a coincidence, healing through prayer must be a miracle. But God isn’t here one minute and then gone the next. God doesn’t show up momentarily to intervene randomly in our lives and then go away, but is always with us. This is what Christ Jesus taught and proved with healing results throughout his ministry. This also explains why some people have experienced instances of healing that they can’t explain, and why others, while not students of Christian Science, have noted that such healings aren’t necessarily miraculous, because they recognize that we can address our health in our thought.