In the American Revolution, militia companies known as Minutemen had to be ready at a moment’s notice to grab a musket and defend the new nation against attacks by the enemy. I learned something about being a minuteman during my thirty-year career in the United States Army Reserve. Once a month we would drill with our unit, which involved activities such as cleaning and maintaining our equipment and participating in physical exercise and training events. The purpose of this was to ensure that the equipment was in good working order and that we would know what to do if we were called out on a real mission.

There is a parallel in the important work in which every Christian Scientist is enlisted, which is “to lessen evil, disease, and death,” as Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, explains in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. She states that we “will overcome them by understanding their nothingness and the allness of God, or good” (p. 450). 

In my prayers for my friend, I needed to allay my own fears about the case.