I was raised in Christian Science, and whenever a health problem came up, my mother prayed for me, and I was soon healed. As I approached adulthood, though, I didn’t turn to God for healing as readily as my mom did. I took pills that I thought would be a quick solution, allowing me to get on with my day undistracted by pain. 

However, instead of the medication reducing my discomfort, I began to experience pain in new and more aggressive forms. Eventually, I stopped pretending that I knew the truth that Jesus declared would make us free. I found myself completely engulfed in a sense of life as material, a willing slave to the body. 

About six years ago, after several medical procedures and car accidents, I realized I had spent a significant amount on hospital bills that year. Disheartened, I turned to that week’s Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly and read the account of the woman who “had suffered many things of many physicians, and had spent all that she had, and was nothing bettered, but rather grew worse” (Mark 5:26).