“Maybe the wall isn’t as solid as I thought.”

The Association assignment this year came to me with a puff of prayer behind it.

When I first considered the assignment, a case came within the hour. It was a call from a neighbor in my town. She had a friend who had tried to commit suicide several times; he was just out of the hospital again and needed help. My neighbor vaguely knew that I helped people with Christian Science and asked if she could give my name to him.

This is the first time that any of my neighbors has acknowledged that my work may be helpful. My neighbors generally maintain a liberal-tolerant silence on what I do. The assignment brought that mental wall down a bit. Maybe the wall isn’t as solid as I thought. 

The gentleman did call and came to talk with me. He is a medical physician and also has a Ph.D. in the sciences. When he asked if I would talk with him, I mentioned that any thing I would say would involve God. He just replied, “Oh, good!”

We had a long and very interesting talk. He has lost faith in medicine and totally stopped practicing it. He was raised an Episcopalian, but hadn’t considered the Bible since childhood. After our visit he asked how he could pursue the ideas we had discussed. He had a Bible, so I gave him a copy of Science and Health and your article about theology and healing, “Healing and the nature of God” (Journal, April 1989).

I haven’t heard from him since, but keep remembering that the kingdom of God is within him.