"No, this just can't be!" the homemaker may exclaim on discovering that the microwave oven overdid its job and dinner is burned to a crisp. The same cry could describe the first feelings anyone may have when faced with more serious circumstances—perhaps an event that seems almost overwhelming.

Such a natural reaction illustrates a yearning of the human mind—its resistance to accepting loss or accident or symptoms of disease. But the human mind of itself is incapable of actually destroying what it fears or dislikes. It may shout "no," but at a more fundamental level it is admitting "yes."

And yet a statement like "No, I will not accept this" can completely overturn such an event as sickness or feelings of fear or grief if it has the right context and is spiritually inspired. In other words, a statement of negation can have such a positive setting that it literally reverses what appears to be irreversible.

What is this necessary "setting"? It has to do with Christly conviction; it is the utter certainty that God truly is almighty, that He is eternally omnipotent, omnipresent, omniscient. Such deep-rooted sureness does not come just from reading statements in a book. It comes as we daily grow in a love of God's allness; it comes through an increasing trust in His supremacy, a deep gratitude for His goodness. Our assurance that God and His perfect creation are the only reality comes from consistent prayer, listening, rejoicing.

This love and trust, this gratitude and listening, are initiated in consciousness by the ever-active Christ. They are the substance of a genuine spiritual renewal. The fuller the transformation of thought, the stronger is our recognition that God and His divine creation actually are the truth of being.

Christ Jesus truly was the Way. He shows us the Way. He is our Way-shower. One can almost sense the kind of spiritual confidence that the Master must have felt when confronted with news that Jairus's daughter had died: No, this precious child of God cannot die. Little wonder that the people laughed at him—the evidence of death was so final to the material senses. But Jesus overpowered that erring, mortal evidence with Truth, with the spiritual fact that Life cannot be lost. This healing grew out of Jesus' overall conviction that man is held in God's care. He did specifically deny the evidence of death ("the damsel is not dead, but sleepeth" ^{See Mark 5:39.} ), but this statement was made within the context of everything that Jesus' daily experience was proving about the allness of God, divine Life.

There may be instances when we find ourselves persistently denying, rejecting, negating, some evil. This is never done as an effort of the human mind merely to ignore a situation or to hypnotize itself into believing all is well. Our statement is based on the power of Christ, on an increasing love of God, a certainty that evil cannot exist, act, or even suggest itself in the presence of God's infinite goodness.

If a Christian Scientist were struggling with some physical difficulty such as pain, it wouldn't be unusual for him to deny vigorously the belief of sensation in matter—right in the face of all the opposing evidence. Such a negation is powerful and is embraced within the positive nature of truth. Mrs. Eddy writes, "The physical affirmation of disease should always be met with the mental negation." ^{Science and Health, p. 392.} And some pages further on she explains, "Whatever the belief is, if arguments are used to destroy it, the belief must be repudiated, and the negation must extend to the supposed disease and to whatever decides its type and symptoms." ^{Ibid., p. 418.}

There are many instances when the Christ impels us simply but firmly to put our mental foot down. We must say "No!" When faced with the question of whether God in His great power would plead the case against him, Job could answer it with conviction: "No; but he would put strength in me." ^{Job 23:6.}

When you find yourself expressing a negation, be sure that it is done in the most Christly and positive context—with a certainty of God's infinite goodness. Then a healing effect will be felt.

I will publish the name of the Lord: ascribe ye greatness unto our God. He is the Rock, his work is perfect: for all his ways are judgment: a God of truth and without iniquity, just and right is he.

Deuteronomy 32:3,4