Falling ants and the disappearing sliver

I love the new office space I moved into last spring. All conditions proved ideal the first few months, except for one. There were ants. Not too many ants, but enough to get me bothered. They would fall from the ceiling onto my desk. One or two at time would land on my glass top and start crawling around looking for refuge. This would happen 3 or 4 times a day. I put up with it figuring it was no big deal, but didn't care for the surprise aliens invading what I considered my territory.

In July, the problem worsened rapidly and I was ready to call an exterminator. I had hesitated because I didn’t want chemicals in the air, but the accelerated bombardment of creepy little creatures falling from above was driving me buggy!

I opened the phone book, found a company to call, lifted the receiver and started to dial, but then abruptly stopped, hung up the phone and comitted to pray about it one more time.

There has to be a spiritual solution to this, I protested.

Humbly, I listened for a helpful inspiration.

“There is nothing to bug you in your office space,” a little voice uttered within. And by “office space,” I knew the nudge meant mental office space.

"There was nothing to bug me in my mental office space," I repeated.

I couldn’t think of any irritation off-hand that was bothering me, other than how to deal with these nuisance critters falling from the rafters. But suddenly, in my prayers, found peace of mind about the whole antsy episode.

"God is Love. I live and work in God’s allness. There are no bothersome ants in the office space God has provided for me," I affirmed.

My prayer was short, to the point, and quickly brought to a close.

I forgot all about calling an exterminator. I didn’t care to do that anymore, and went back to work.

A week later, I realized that not a single ant had appeared since that little de-bugging prayer. Not a single one. I even looked around for a straggler. None! No ants. It’s been over two months now, and not a solitary ant has appeared on my desk. I'm still thanking God for the change in circumstances.

I had another experience that caught me by surprise in August while camping.

One evening, I noticed a large black sliver in one of my fingers. My first impulse was to get it out. But it was buried deep and looked immovable. I did not have proper tools, and didn’t want to tear up my finger trying to get it out, so I decided to leave it alone and prayerfully know that it was not a problem for me.

In my prayers, I went directly to absolute Truth. In Truth, I knew, there was no sliver in an unwanted place, that I was not a victim of a harmful incident, that I was in no danger, and that as a spiritual child of God I would remain pain free and healthy during the rest of the camping trip. It was a short, simple and to the point prayer. I forgot about my finger.

The next morning, while eating breakfast, my vision ran across the digit I had been worried about the evening before. And there was no sliver.

I did a double take. I inspected it closely. I looked for an opening where it might have exited. There was no opening. There was no sliver. There was no evidence whatsoever that a piece of foreign matter had been there. My finger was perfect.

The above two incidents have gotten me to thinking even deeper about the fundamental truth Christian Science teaches, that there is no matter. What we call matter, and material conditions, are but mortal beliefs. Change the belief, the condition changes. And the change doesn’t have to take time. Truth is not any truer tomorrow than it is today. So, why not experience it today!