A little more than a year ago a peculiar, small growth appeared on my leg. As a Christian Scientist, I knew I could handle this situation through prayer.

I knew that it would be fruitless to accept the reality or existence of an abnormal, material growth, and then pray to try to get rid of it. Rather than focusing on an abnormal growth on my leg, I felt that I was being led to work on spiritual growth—growth in the discernment of my true spiritual identity and nature as a perfect, spiritual idea, or child, of God.

I thought of a relevant analogy: When my car is due for an oil change, a light appears on the dashboard illuminating the words “maintenance required.” When I see the light go on I don’t focus my efforts and energies on trying to make the light go off. The light is not the problem. Instead, I get the necessary servicing—the oil change—and then the light goes off.

As I prayed—focusing on going up higher in my thought and getting a clearer realization of my spiritual identity and relationship to God, it occurred to me that this physical abnormality had appeared at about the same time that I had made plans to attend the annual Association meeting of the pupils of a Christian Science teacher. I had learned that the theme of the teacher’s address was the development of our spiritual understanding, the understanding of scientific spirituality.

Well, I attended the meeting, and the Association address had an inspiring focus on developing our understanding of God, Life. The word development has as its synonyms “growth,” “rise,” “increase,” “expansion,” “progress,” and “advancement,” among others. So after that weekend I devoted myself to letting spiritual sense—spiritual understanding—develop in my consciousness. During my study and prayer, the following idea occurred to me. Progress (or development) is not up to me. It is a law of God, operating within each of us whether we know it or not. Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health, “God expresses in man the infinite idea forever developing itself, broadening and rising higher and higher from a boundless basis” (p. 258). Forever developing itself!

I thought of another analogy: if I want to go from Carpinteria, where I live, to Santa Barbara, 14 miles away, I can walk, drive, or take the train. If I walk, my progress will be very slow. I may even have to stop overnight along the way. I may get tired or discouraged about reaching my destination. I may stop moving forward because of getting sidetracked by the shops in Summerland! I may wonder when and if I’ll ever get to Santa Barbara. My progress in this case seems to be up to me. If I drive, the progress will be a lot quicker, but it still seems that it’s up to me to advance toward my destination. I still have to get in the car, handle the steering wheel, accelerate and decelerate using pedals and brake, and drive safely to reach the neighboring town. However, if I take the train, all I have to do is be willing to get on the train, and then let the engineer move me forward toward my destination. The engineer is essentially responsible for my progress.

Likening this travel to the process of spiritual development, I simply need to mentally “get on the train”—mentally accept that the train’s engineer, God, is responsible for my entire being. I am an expression of the infinite idea, forever developing!

Another insight I gained from subsequent weeks of study concerned the definition of the word develop. One definition is “to cause to grow gradually in some way; to cause to become gradually fuller, larger, better, etc.” And isn’t this what students of Christian Science experience: a gradual spiritual awakening of thought over days, weeks, years? Understanding may happen little by little, rather than sharply or suddenly, but it’s something we can expect. Mrs. Eddy certainly acknowledged the legitimacy of gradual growth when she wrote about her discovery of Christian Science in these words: “The revelation of Truth in the understanding came to me gradually and apparently through divine power” (Science and Health, p. 109).

I saw that I could be grateful for all that I was learning about myself as a reflection of God, even if my spiritual growth did feel gradual! I continued to study and pray over a period of about three months and was deeply grateful, not only for this time of increased spiritual clarity, but for the resulting diminishing and disappearing of the physical growth on my leg. It vanished completely, and has not returned. It was a beautiful healing.

Sally Smith
Carpinteria, California, US