A conscious commitment to stand for God, that is, to rely wholly on Him for healing, is fundamental in Christian Science. The confidence underlying this commitment may be only a glimpse of the fact expounded by John that "God is love." ^{I John 4:8.} But God does hear us when we pray, and He does answer us. Indeed, the Scriptures tell us that He knows our need before we ask Him.

As Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health: "The 'divine ear' is not an auditory nerve. It is the all-hearing and all-knowing Mind, to whom each need of man is always known and by whom it will be supplied." ^{Science and Health, p. 7.}

Perhaps we'd like to feel more intuitively that God really loves us, that He is with us. One way to do this is to express more gratitude. Couldn't we be more grateful for what we already know about our relationship to our Father-Mother God? More gratitude will increase our awareness of spiritual reality. It will permeate our prayers with increased confidence and effectiveness.

Christ Jesus' tremendous confidence in God was supported by his gratitude. In his prayer before raising Lazarus from the dead, his words "Father, I thank thee" preceded "I knew that thou hearest me always." And who is not impressed by the triumphant response to his command "Lazarus, come forth"? ^{John 11:41-43.}

Speaking of this incident, Science and Health explains, "Who dares to doubt this consummate test of the power and willingness of divine Mind to hold man forever intact in his perfect state, and to govern man's entire action?" ^{Science and Health, pp. 493-494.}

The Master's grateful recognition of man's oneness with God enabled him always to feel and know Love's sustaining power.

God's universe extends from the infinitesimal to the infinite; we perceive it humanly in forms both big and small. All the power of Life, Truth, and Love is here now to sustain every man, woman, and child who turns to God in prayer. Each grateful affirmation of man's perfection as God's likeness, each denial of the seeming substantiality and intelligence of matter—based on the allness of God—is backed up by the power and action of divine law. In obedience to our Way-shower's command "Heal the sick, cleanse the lepers, raise the dead, cast out devils," ^{Matt. 10:8.} each of us, when confronted with evil, can choose to stand for God and trust in Him.

One such opportunity came to me about the time of my dad's eightieth birthday. He suffered an apparent stroke that left him with crossed eyes and double vision. Dad was greatly distressed as he was still an active gold-leaf lettering man. He was even more alarmed when an optometrist who examined him in order to prescribe some temporary corrective lenses told him that a man his age should not expect to recover. Dad, however, was a devout student of Christian Science. He asked me, although I lived several hundred miles away, if I would help him through prayer to rely on God alone for healing.

We began immediately to take a firm stand for Truth and for man's spiritual perfection. We vehemently denied the possibility that matter could have any effect on man, good or bad. We reasoned that because man is the complete expression of all-seeing Mind, he includes the perfect faculties of that Mind. Furthermore, we affirmed that this eternal relationship of the one and only perfect cause and perfect effect, perfect Father and perfect child, could not possibly deteriorate, be subject to age, accident, or disease. We determined not to fear or be influenced by opinions resulting from physical diagnoses, whether they seemed to originate with another or in our own thoughts.

How lovingly these words in Science and Health sustained us: "In Christian Science mere opinion is valueless." ^{Science and Health, p. 341.} God's view of man is the only view that counts. How God made us is the way He sees us, and how He sees us is the way He keeps us.

On this basis we did not pray to improve material sight but earnestly sought a greater understanding of the true spiritual vision God has given man. We rejoiced in knowing there is no dualism or double vision expressed in the spiritual account of creation: "And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." ^{Gen. 1:31.} We were confident that normal vision would be restored as we allowed Truth and Love to dissolve the opaqueness of mortal belief. We endeavored to see only good in everything and everybody during this period of spiritual growth, knowing that seeing only good makes good seeing mandatory.

We were grateful for the many new views of Truth that were unfolding to us each day. Our confidence in God grew, and with this increased confidence came more gratitude. The inpouring ideas of Love were gradually eliminating the errors of material sense and revealing the wholeness of man.

Soon a letter arrived from Dad. He wrote, in part, "Last evening, while walking to church, I did not have double vision." Then he added, "Note, too, I am using the typewriter, which I haven't used in some time." Most important, he concluded, "I have had an improved frame of mind as well as better vision today."

How grateful we were for the progress! We continued to pray, and in another few days the healing was complete and permanent. The same optometrist met him on the street and exclaimed, "I just can't believe it. Your eyes are all right!"

It was difficult to distinguish between our gratitude and our confidence. We knew that nothing could ever really harm a child of God. Gratitude for the ever-present Christ-power will always light up a seeming night of suffering with a brand-new dawn of revelation and renewed trust in divine Love.

Each time our Father-Mother God meets our need, our confidence in good is naturally increased. Just think of the confidence we would gain and the possibilities for spiritual progress that would be ours if we systematically turned away from material sense testimony and consistently obeyed only the "still small voice" of our creator.

No longer would we find it necessary to learn life's lessons through suffering; with divine Science we would let Truth do for us what it did for Jesus. Our prayers would blend into a natural, ceaseless stand for the perfection of man and the universe—a stand backed up by the power of God. The challenge is ours! Mrs. Eddy shows us the way: "To live so as to keep human consciousness in constant relation with the divine, the spiritual, and the eternal, is to individualize infinite power; and this is Christian Science." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 160.}