I awoke one morning last summer with symptoms of illness pressing in on me. A day or so earlier, a member of the family who had recently visited my home for a week announced that he had tested positive for Covid-19. Everyone in my household was dealing with the illness at this point, as was a family member who lives in another part of our city. 

I remained in bed but was able and willing to pray, and I turned to divine Science, the healing agent I had known all my life and through which I knew God, the source of all, to be completely good. I recall feeling very distant from God as I prayed that morning. But having had many healings as a lifelong student of Christian Science, I was sure that God is the only real power and presence, and that the fog of disease must dissipate when it is no longer accepted as a reality. 

I also knew that God is Spirit, the only substance, and that my true body is not material but spiritual and reflects the substance of Spirit, its wholeness and perfection; therefore, it cannot be sick. This conviction was based on the declaration in the Bible, “There is one body, and one Spirit” (Ephesians 4:4). In recent years, this verse has been a springboard for my spiritual growth, enabling me to more clearly recognize that my true identity is spiritual and never existed in matter, for no material element exists in the kingdom of heaven, where “we live, and move, and have our being” (Acts 17:28).