A Woman was walking along a beach and, at the same time, praying about different things. As she moved along, she noticed a little boy sitting, waiting for his mother. It seemed strange to see a boy sitting so still on a beach. Beaches are places where children most like to run, laugh, and play.

After she walked up to him and talked with him a moment, she saw the reason he was so still. Because of defects in his feet, he not only couldn't run on the sand, he couldn't walk at all. But what happened next changed everything.

The power of God, and the perfect, spiritual way He created this child—even though not obvious to mortal eyes—must have been so tangible at that moment that the child was healed. The woman helped the boy up, and they walked together on the warm sand towards the water. His mother, stunned by what she saw, rejoiced, and wept a little with the woman as they both thanked God with all their hearts. Those first steps were soon followed by the boy's full freedom.

Just how would you have felt if you were there at that moment? How would you have felt about God? What would you have thought of God's power to heal? At Lynn Beach in Massachusetts, the woman described—Mary Baker Eddy—had healed a seven-year-old boy of club feet (see Robert Peel, Mary Baker Eddy, The Years of Discovery, p. 201). Later, she went on to found the Church of Christ, Scientist. We can't go back and know exactly how she felt or what she thought that day, but one thing is certain—Mrs. Eddy must have felt gratitude for the certain power of God's healing love that words cannot adequately describe.

Paul, too, surely felt that kind of gratitude. "Thanks be unto God for his unspeakable gift," he once wrote to his friends (II Cor. 9:15). And why wouldn't he? He witnessed God's power to heal many times. In fact, he also once saw a man with birth defects of the feet completely healed: "And there sat a certain man at Lystra, impotent in his feet, being a cripple from his mother's womb, who never had walked: the same heard Paul speak: who stedfastly beholding him, and perceiving that he had faith to be healed, said with a loud voice, Stand upright on thy feet. And he leaped and walked" (Acts 14:8–10). How could both this man and the little boy on the beach have felt God's influence and been healed without lengthy explanations of God's healing laws or of divine reality?

Isn't it because God's healing power isn't really conveyed through human language—English, Greek, or otherwise? God's healing message—the Christ, Truth—is available, whether or not a person is told about it, just as God's love itself is. An infant feels a parent's love, and can feel God's healing love, long before he or she can articulate it. Infants, toddlers, and young children respond to God and prayer naturally, even though they may not be able to talk about it as an adult might. In fact, children are often the best models of receptivity. Christ Jesus once said: "Whosoever shall not receive the kingdom of God as a little child, he shall not enter therein. And he took them up in his arms, put his hands upon them, and blessed them" (Mark 10:15, 16). Does that mean we should forget language, throw away books, discontinue reading and education? Of course not. Yet when human language isn't possible—or perhaps isn't needed— God's healing message is always present and communicating itself.

How does Christian Science heal? A complete answer is found in the Bible and in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. But this sentence from the beginning of the textbook tells us something fundamental about it: "The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation" (p. xi).

It is helpful to note where and how the influence of God, divine Principle, operates—in human consciousness, destroying the belief in the reality of disease or structural deformity. The belief is destroyed because God is absolutely All, the only creator. Form, shape, substance, are ideas of Mind, held in perfection by God, Spirit. Nothing can change this.

Because God is All-in-all, disease or deformity appears, not in reality, but in mortal belief. It is never truly real, never God's creation or actually anything's creation. No disease, no handicap, can be real in God's allness. Mortal senses certainly don't testify to God's creation, yet it is present all the same. All of the fear, false belief, and conceited mortal claims there ever were—and therefore physical limitations—couldn't even touch God's spiritual creation.

God doesn't know incapacity, and therein is where healing and safety lie. Once the fear of disease or debility has lost its foothold in thought—including the child's and his or her parents'—the discordant condition has no basis. It is clearly seen for what it is—nothing—and this opens thought to the nature of God's work. There is healing. Through deeply felt, humble prayer it becomes evident that what God knows of man, we can know. What He doesn't know can't harm us and isn't really a part of our consciousness. Our spiritually based thoughts express God's reality.

Sometimes society's doubts and disbeliefs subject a practical, healing Christianity to scorn. But the Christian healer humbly follows Jesus' example, seeking guidance in prayer from the child's true Parent: Father-Mother God. Just as the power of God and His law of healing were present in Christ Jesus' time, so they are present and available today. Although we may have often read statements to this effect in the Christian Science periodicals, this fact cannot be repeated often enough. It is logical that a mathematical law that was true two thousand years ago would still be applicable today. How much more so is God's law of healing.

Would it be logical for either mathematical laws or, more important, the law of divine healing to apply only to people of a certain period in history or over a certain age in human years? No, the truth of being is true for all, and God's love is infinite and impartial. Therefore no one is excluded from the benefits of His healing power and affection.

God's healing truths and laws are eternal. They are universal. They transcend age and experience. They are a present help, not only for adults, but for every child. Through dedicated practice of these laws, we witness God's healing, Christly influence speaking directly to infants, to children, to teenagers—to everyone—in just the language each can best understand.

Mark Swinney is Managing Editor of the Christian Science Sentinel and The Christian Science Journal.