Whenever I read the weekly Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lessons, I am inspired by the Bible stories that highlight Jesus’ healings. Almost all of the healings occurred instantaneously, and I have often wondered how an illness, which to the material senses seems so real, could disappear in an instant.

But years ago, I had such a healing in my own experience. For a long time, I had suffered from intense ear pain every time I traveled by plane and the plane started its descent. In fact, even before the captain announced that we would be descending, my ears would begin hurting me. I felt well only after several hours of rest. 

On one occasion when I was flying home from a vacation in Brazil, two hours before landing I began to feel pain in my ears, which quickly became intense and distressing. There seemed to be no human means to find relief. I began to pray with the first thing that came to mind: “I am a daughter of God.” As the discomfort increased, I held on to that statement of truth and let nothing else into thought. Although in Christian Science we do not pray with formulas or “vain repetitions” (Matthew 6:7), I knew that by sticking with this thought I would close the door on any contrary thoughts—those that have no basis in reality, which is spiritual.