I still remember a testimony I heard as a child at a Wednesday evening service in the branch Church of Christ, Scientist, my family attended. A woman recounted how she had been healed of the symptoms of a cold by realizing that in the warmth of divine Love, God, there can be no cold.

This made sense to me. In Christian Science Sunday School, I was learning to look beneath the surface of my experiences to find the thoughts they represented, and then to replace thoughts that aren’t good, such as fear or discomfort, with the understanding of God’s all-good, 100 percent spiritual creation.

The first chapter of the Bible puts it this way: “God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Genesis 1:31). This account introduces God as purposeful good, the creator of only that which is spiritual and perfect, including His children—all of us. In my practice of Christian Science, I’ve found that when I turn from an inharmonious, material view of things to God’s wholly good and spiritual view, healing happens.