I have had many healings by standing mentally still and listening to God. When a specific need comes up, such as when a belief of illness or accident presents itself, I usually find the human situation is making a number of claims that God, good, is not the only power. It is important to recognize and dismiss these false claims as erroneous, so they don’t take over and make us fearful. We do not need to accept these suggestions.

Silencing this mental chatter prepares us to hear God’s Word. It is like tuning a radio—eliminating the static of mortal mind so the message of divine Mind is loud and clear.          

One afternoon we noticed that Jordan, one of our three hens, was lying on the ground in a strange position, looking lifeless. As my husband picked her up, she was limp in his arms, and he said sadly, “I think she’s dead.” 

But, just then I saw her eye blink open and close again. My husband had been about to go to the hardware store, so I said, “Just leave her with me.” He carefully placed her in the nest box, and I headed inside to pray. 

When we silently hunger to know God better, this state of mind is ready to be filled with divine inspiration.

I found myself wondering if she was about the right age to die. But straightaway I saw that to think this way was to accept the belief that life is in a mortal body that at some point wears out, and that death is inevitable. Christian Science teaches that in reality, life is not a timeline that unavoidably comes to an end. Life is a synonym for God—without beginning and without end. 

The next thought that came to me was that chickens just die sometimes, for no apparent reason. Again, I rejected this, reasoning that because Life is God, Life is also divine Principle. Life is the law—unchangeable and eternal. There are no creatures that are vulnerable to happenstance. Life is not at the mercy of a mortal body. 

The third suggestion that came was that chickens are difficult to heal—I had failed with chickens before. But I knew that God never fails, so I reasoned that I, as God’s reflection, could not fail either. In divine Mind there is only present perfection, now. 

I dismissed all these erroneous suggestions as I was walking back to the house. By the time I stood in the living room, the chatter of false beliefs had stopped, and I turned to God. I asked God, “What do you want me to see here?” I listened, and immediately the thought came to look at Jordan not as a mortal creature, but as one of God’s perfect, spiritual ideas. Since God is All, His expression is everywhere, and there is, in reality, nothing else to see. 

And so, standing in the living room with my eyes closed, I obeyed. I thought of Jordan and saw (acknowledged) her as a spiritual expression of God. I saw all the lovely things I knew about her and her little quirky ways. She was beautiful. She had an identity that was unique and perfect. I was so filled with what God was teaching me that I totally forgot about the chicken body that was out in the nest box. 

About an hour later, my husband and I were out in the back garden again, and there, digging in the dirt, were three chickens, all happy and busy. A bit later I watched Jordan joyously stretching up her neck and flapping her wings—with no trace of a problem, and no recovery process. We rejoiced: “I will look unto the Lord; … my God will hear me” (Micah 7:7). 

Nowadays I know not to accept the chatter of false belief as my thinking. I simply know that suggestions of fear, disease, or any inharmony are not my thoughts because they are not from God, and I counter them with Godlike thoughts. When I stand as a porter (see Science and Health, p. 392) and bar these thoughts, I am ready to hear the Word of God. I would not have learned these lessons if my prayer had been one of me doing the communicating. God is the one with the answers.