During childhood and into early adulthood, I regularly had nosebleeds, and I relied on Christian Science in praying for healing. At one point, I attended overnight summer camp, where the problem became more frequent and prolonged. Although I enjoyed being at camp to participate in a music program for two weeks, I missed home. I had hoped that the nosebleeds might be enough for the camp nurses to send me home. But they weren’t. 

Later, during my freshman year away at college, my mother and sister came to visit me for an afternoon and take me to lunch. When they arrived, I was in the bathroom trying to stop one of these episodes. My mother called a Christian Science practitioner for treatment through prayer. Moments later, the flow of blood stopped completely. The practitioner had said to my mother, “There never really was a bloody nose”—in spiritual reality, which is where we all truly live, no such thing existed. 

I believe that what the practitioner was saying was that disease is never here, never part of spiritual creation, which is inseparably one with divine Spirit, God. What is always here is an abundance of ease, health, and well-being. As the Bible explains, God is the only cause and creator and is always caring and providing for His creation. While I was very grateful for the immediacy of the healing that day, it wasn’t the end of the problem.