I had been having nosebleeds, which made me afraid to go out on my own. I had also stepped back from my duties at my local branch Church of Christ, Scientist, while I prayed about the problem.

Nosebleeds were not something I had experienced in the past, so I was taken aback by their onset—some minor episodes and a major one. A Christian Science practitioner began praying with me, and he asked me to consider whether I was “made up” or “made.” This was in reference to a passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. In answer to the question “What is man?” it states, in part: “Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements. The Scriptures inform us that man is made in the image and likeness of God” (p. 475). 

I saw that “made up” referred to the false concept that we are an assembly of material parts. That’s a myth, a fiction—something that appears to be real but isn’t because man is made by Spirit, God, and is therefore wholly spiritual. I also spent time with these words from a hymn in the Christian Science Hymnal: