Protected while caring for a friend with COVID
/Question 1: Share a physical healing or healings in which reading one or more of Skip’s articles played an important part in your own spiritual study and prayer and ultimate healing.
This past month, I spent quite a bit of time with a friend who was experiencing COVID symptoms. She took a test, which came back positive. She discouraged me from being in the house with her—from eating, sleeping, or working in the same space. However, the only way I could care for her with food or blankets was to be on hand. While I did stay out of public settings so as not to disturb thought, I genuinely was not afraid that my own health was at risk.
My friend is not a Christian Scientist, and when she asked me to take her to a medical clinic, I calmly did so. While she appreciated my calm care for her, she kept asserting that I would become sick as a result of being with her. I chuckled about how similar that assertion was to the claim in the allegory of the trial in Science and Health (pp. 430–442)—caring for a sick friend, whether the name of the disease was liver complaint or COVID.
What I appreciated about this experience was that I could daily pray to know that there isn’t any power in a material thing called a virus—not if God is All-in-all. I could pray to know that about my friend and I could give myself a treatment each day. While I did not test for COVID, I did not have any symptoms of disease and was healthy throughout the experience.
As I think about which of Skip’s articles helped bring about this healing, three come to mind: “Christianly scientific prayer” (Sentinel, September 19, 2011), “Something to help with your health” (Sentinel, October 12, 1987), and “How much can you pray about?” (Sentinel, December 17, 1990). It was simultaneously all of them and none of them exclusively. As always, it is God that does the healing, Mary Baker Eddy who explains it, and our dear Teacher who brings us back again and again to what Science is showing us.