“This child is ready to be born, so I’d like to induce labor,” the doctor told me. I was pregnant with my second, and the baby was late coming. But I replied, “No.” Through my prayers about the pregnancy, I felt a deep conviction that the baby would come at just the right time. The doctor was surprised by my response and said, “Well, this baby is ready to be born, so you’d better put your mind to it.”

As a Christian Scientist, I had learned that there is only one Mind—God. In this Mind, there is no time; there is only forever. The Bible tells us that “now is the accepted time; behold, now is the day of salvation” (II Corinthians 6:2). So the only time in eternity is now. It is not the past; it is not the future; it is the forever presence of God and His goodness. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy writes, “Time is a mortal thought, the divisor of which is the solar year” (pp. 598–599).

As I spoke later that day with a Christian Science practitioner who was praying with me, we thought a lot about “God’s disposal of events” (Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 281). And not only was the baby born the next day—naturally, without the need to be induced—but we made it to the hospital in time even though we lived over an hour away. Also, we could only afford to pay for one day in the delivery room (hospitals charged by the day at that time), and the baby was born at 12:25 a.m., so we were charged for just the one day!