All inharmony in human experience stems from the belief that we lack something: health, love, companionship, beauty, purity, understanding, security, self-control, integrity, compassion. The list is long. But can these really be absent?

To heal inharmony, in whatever guise it claims to appear, we must destroy this belief of lack, of not having all we need. And a good way to open thought to accept a healing conclusion is to stop brooding about what we think we don't have and to start being grateful for what we do have. We can be grateful for what we spiritually are.

As we fill our consciousness with what is spiritually true—clearly see and know ourselves as God's perfect ideas, reflections of Life, Love, Mind—we can be grateful for the absolute fact that in reality we lack nothing. All good is ours, right now, by virtue of our at-one-ment with God. No false belief of lack can maintain a hold on us when our thought is filled with gratitude for this relationship.

Thought upwelling with gratitude is indeed receptive to the divine healing power of Truth. In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy writes, "Whatever holds human thought in line with unselfed love, receives directly the divine power." ^{Science and Health, p. 192;}

Whenever we seem to be struggling with a problem that claims to have hung on for days, or weeks, perhaps even years, we can turn upon error's apparent tenacity with gratitude. "Trials are proofs of God's care," ^{ibid., p. 66;} Mrs. Eddy writes. Gratitude for these proofs, these opportunities to draw closer to God, to know Him better, inevitably prepares thought to receive healing. We can ask God humbly and sincerely, "Father, what more do I need to learn? Help me to know Your will, to do Your will, and to see myself more clearly in Your likeness."

When we are truly willing to listen, to see what is needed, and then let go even ingrained mental habits if God-directed intuition points to them as hindrances in our growth Spiritward, we loosen the grasp of stubborn belief and find ourselves free of its unreal hold.

It doesn't matter what mortal thought says about the so-called seriousness of a problem—whether a particular disease is deemed by human opinion incurable, or more difficult to cure than another, or apt to leave one the worse for having had it. These are all illusory mortal concepts that Truth destroys with the healing truth that man is God's perfect, whole, complete image, now. And when a diseased belief is healed in Christian Science, it is not just relieved temporarily, subject to return. It is destroyed, wiped out of human consciousness—the only place it ever claimed to exist.

Isn't this assurance of complete and permanent healing an inexhaustible source of gratitude? "Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." ^{Heb. 11:1;} A consciousness enriched by humble gratitude is fertile soil in which one's faith can take root and grow into a deeper understanding—a quiet knowing —of the truth that heals.

Sometimes we may be tempted to think we are not sufficiently advanced in the study of Christian Science to conquer a particular error. Even when we are working conscientiously with a Christian Science practitioner, our own lack of experience may claim to obstruct our receptivity to Truth.

We don't have to heed such a spurious claim! Think of how Jesus loved little children and appreciated their fresh, uncluttered thought. Certainly they weren't very advanced in religious study. Yet they were immediately receptive to Truth. One does not have to have studied Christian Science for years to feel God's closeness, His ever-present love. No matter how new we may be in our study or how bleak the seeming human condition, we can know that God's love enfolds us. And we can be grateful for this love. "With God all things are possible," ^{Matt. 19:26;} Jesus said.

We can rejoice in the conviction that God does answer our prayers, no matter how simple, that whatever we need to rise to, or whatever false concept we need to get rid of, God will show us the way. And healing will follow, naturally, simply. Because receptive, expectant thought is where healing takes place—not in some place away from us, difficult to reach, but right in our own consciousness.

Occasionally, even though we are sincerely grateful for God's love and for the knowledge that Christian Science makes healing possible just as surely now as in Christ Jesus' day, we may find ourselves arguing on behalf of a discordant condition rather than against it. Our problem is really so unusual, we may believe, so much more complex than anyone realizes, that no matter what truths are expressed to us we counter with "Yes, but...unwittingly insisting on the reality of the error we actually should deny.

Instead, we should see such moments as a good opportunity to shut up the devil. We can refuse to be a mouthpiece for evil, mortal mind, and its lies that would use us to obstruct healing.

When we are alert, we reverse the argument by actively rejoicing in the allness of God, Truth, Principle. "Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good," Mrs. Eddy writes. "God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man." ^{Science and Health, p. 393;}

Gratitude for this divinely bestowed power, for God's love and tender care, for the absolute conviction that as His perfect reflection we lack nothing, prepares thought to accept healing. We can indeed gain "the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness," ^{Isa. 61:3.} and be free!