Several decades ago, on Independence Day in the United States, I awoke with an excruciatingly painful toothache. I tried to pray for myself, but the pain was so great that I couldn’t think clearly. I tried listening to an audio recording of the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, but when I felt no improvement by midday, I called a member of my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, who is a Christian Science practitioner. I was grateful that he was available to pray for me, despite it being a holiday.

I recounted my tale of woe, explaining that the pain in my mouth was extreme and that I needed help. He immediately asked me, “Where is the pain?” My first reaction was to be upset, as I felt he had not listened to what I had said. The pain was in my mouth! We talked very briefly, and he said he would pray for me.  

After we hung up, I pondered the question he had posed: Where is the pain? I was relatively new to Christian Science at the time, but I knew enough of spiritual truth to have it dawn on me that the pain was actually in what is termed in Christian Science mortal mind. Upon the heels of that thought came another simple truth—that mortal mind doesn’t exist, because there is only one Mind, God, which is infinite, as Mrs. Eddy teaches us throughout her writings.