Many years ago a growth appeared on my face. It bled often, and I became very self-conscious about it.

For the next few years I prayed for healing. I had treatment from different Christian Science practitioners, but there didn’t seem to be any improvement. Friends, family members, and my dentist urged me to seek a surgeon’s help, but I felt certain that I could expect healing with Christian Science treatment. I’d had so many wonderful healings, as well as protection from harm and injury, over the course of seventy years, throughout which I had exclusively relied on Christian Science.

I spent a lot of time reading the chapter on prayer in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Over time, this sentence from that chapter began to emerge as very significant to me: “What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds” (p. 4).