When our two children were young, I received a phone call from the grammar school they attended and was asked to pick them up because they were covered in red spots. We were told to call the county health department, which we did, and later a visiting county nurse confirmed that both children had the measles and needed to be quarantined. 

My husband and I, as devoted Christian Scientists, immediately embraced our dear children both physically and mentally with love. However, we initially felt blindsided by this diagnosis because our children were adopted and had come to us with a folder filled with records of all their immunizations and boosters, which included a measles vaccination for both son and daughter. We had recently been praying deeply about a measles contagion in our community, but we now realized we had passively accepted the notion that these medical immunizations gave our children fail-proof protection against the disease. Our own healing experiences had proven to us that there is a more powerful and complete way to govern one’s health than through material remedies. 

I knew Christian Science would fully heal my children, so I turned to the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, for guidance. One passage reads: “Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously. When the condition is present which you say induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident, then perform your office as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears. Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the body cannot suffer from them” (p. 392). I was so grateful, because this guidance helped me to be more alert and stand porter at the door of my thought to exclude any notions contrary to the powerful, healing ideas of God, divine Love. A few paragraphs further on, we read, “Be firm in your understanding that the divine Mind governs, and that in Science man reflects God’s government” (p. 393).