Thanks to the study of Christian Science, a good understanding had settled over our family, eliminating the apprehension, doubt, and fear with which we had been brought up. 

However, a few years ago, when preparing for my father’s funeral, I had, as head of the family, serious misunderstandings with one of my sisters and my younger brother. Their attitude toward me seemed very unfair, and I seriously resented them, even one year later. We had spoken very little and had not visited each other during that period. I felt they were wrong and that it was up to them to come to me and take the first steps toward reconciliation. 

One morning during that time, after I’d slept peacefully, I woke up with a very sore tooth. I prayed, as I do every morning, affirming truths about the reality of God’s creation, always perfect and harmonious, in His image and likeness. Then I went to work. During the day, the situation hardly improved—the pain persisted all day. But I continued to affirm my spiritual nature and the impossibility of my expressing anything other than divine Love, in which there can be no pain or infection.  

In the evening I told my wife what was happening, and together we read that week’s Bible Lesson, which consisted of passages from the Bible and from the book Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy. That comforted me. Then I went to bed, expecting I would wake up in perfect health. 

I had experienced toothaches regularly when I was a child and had been treated by many dentists, who had prescribed different medicines. But after becoming acquainted with Christian Science in 1994, and after a wonderful healing my wife had, I decided to rely on spiritual healing because I had seen its power in action. After that, I had still experienced some toothaches, but not severe ones, and they had yielded thanks to prayer, which strengthened me in the thought that God can do all things and that matter has no real power. 

But now, on that second night, after having managed to sleep only a few minutes, I was again awakened around eleven o’clock by an increasingly severe pain. I finally decided to get up and reread the Bible Lesson, always hoping to have a little respite. Still, the situation did not improve. 

Around six o’clock in the morning, while I held my head, unable even to think, I was really wondering what I should do. And I got the idea to open the Bible to find a passage through which God would speak to me. 

The Bible opened at the First Epistle of John, and I read this: “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is of God; and everyone who loves is born of God and knows God.” I was touched by this passage, which goes on, a bit further: “No one has seen God at any time. If we love one another, God abides in us, and His love has been perfected in us.” The ending helped me most: “If someone says, ‘I love God,’ and hates his brother, he is a liar; for he who does not love his brother whom he has seen, how can he love God whom he has not seen?” (I John 4:7, 12, 20, New King James Version).

I immediately felt challenged by this passage, and decided to see if I really loved those around me. I soon thought of my sister and my younger brother, of what they had done to me, and I realized that it was very difficult for me to really forgive them. But I knew that was what I had to do right then. 

I began to glimpse the need to cultivate tolerance, forgiveness, charity, kindness, and humility in order to practice healing in the broadest sense.

So I began thinking of things like this: “They were created perfect” and “God knows no evil.” But all that seemed a bit abstract, and my thought wasn’t going any further. Then I thought of the example of Joseph, the son of Jacob, who was sold to traveling merchants by his older brothers. It was his brothers’ wrong action that led Joseph to rely completely on God, so he could accomplish a great mission for the benefit of many people (see Gen., chaps. 37, 39–47). And it was faith in divine unfoldment that allowed Joseph to forgive his brothers completely, proving, as the New Testament says, that “all things work together for good to them that love God” (Rom. 8:28). I saw a parallel with my own situation, and I began to glimpse the need to cultivate tolerance, forgiveness, charity, kindness, and humility, in order to practice healing in the broadest sense. I had been created to express these qualities; it was in my nature and in the true nature of each member of my family and of everyone. 

I recognized then that my attitude during the funeral arrangements had perhaps not been very good. As I thought this, I heard a soft noise in my jaw, and the pain stopped dead. 

I then felt a great joy come over me. I wanted to sing. But then the fear arose that the pain would return. I prayed quietly. After 15 minutes, I became confident that I was healed. God does not leave His work half done. I left the room and went to the kitchen, where I found my wife, and I told her, smiling, “I am healed.” And when she asked, I explained what had happened. We rejoiced together, and throughout the day I thought about this wonderful healing. 

Why did this passage about love, and my willingness to acknowledge the divine unfoldment—and then to admit that my brother and my sister perhaps were not the only ones to blame—heal me so instantly? Because it is in thought that healing occurs. I discovered, in fact, that we are created to express the qualities of God continually: love, peace, joy, tolerance, patience, humility—in short, all those things that the Apostle Paul called “the fruit of the Spirit” in his epistle to the Galatians (5:22). I realized that quarrels, jealousy, hatred, are denials of God’s work. And every time we engage in these things, and especially when we hold on to them, we are denying God’s activity and goodness in our lives. 

Sometimes, simply stating the truths about God’s creation is not enough. In my case, I had kept in my thought that my brother and my sister were imperfect, capable of expressing something other than divine goodness, and that I myself was subject to vilification and abuse. But I understood that it is necessary to “clean” one’s thinking often, not only in order to organize, save, and protect what is useful, necessary, and interesting, but also to get rid of all that is useless, outdated, cumbersome, fruitless, and false. 

That’s what I did that morning. All resentment was erased. After that, I was able to reestablish harmonious relations with my family, and the subject that had divided us was completely resolved. As for the toothache, the healing has been permanent!