A friend who had been healed of a long, distressing illness brought me some copies of the Christian Science Sentinel, the reading of which led me to ask for help. During about thirty years, physical discord of some sort had seemingly held me in bondage most of the time. Several operations were supposed to have spared me to my family, yet for many years I was seldom free from pain. Later on, the possibility of still another operation was suggested. Our home seemed filled with a great sense of limitation and discouragement, and just then a new phase of discord kept me in bed much of the time. The Christian Science practitioner declared: "God is Life, and He changeth not! As His likeness, you forever express perfect activity." This, to me, seemed an unusual statement, but I knew it must be true. I gave up all material remedies and faithfully read our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy, thus being obedient; and through the loving work of the practitioner, in twelve days, lifelong constipation was naturally and permanently healed.
These words of our Leader on page 283 of Science and Health stood out before me as a personal message: "Mind is the source of all movement, and there is no inertia to retard or check its perpetual and harmonious action." Thus I saw that the only change necessary is in human thinking. With me, as with many others, holding on to beliefs in a past had to yield to Truth's demand, "God requireth that which is past," which means that thoughts such as those of self-pity, self-justification, and resentment must be cast out of consciousness to give place to right thinking. In three weeks, intense suffering and every abnormal condition suddenly vanished, and I rejoiced in a new and marvelous freedom, in the proof in Christian Science that God, good, really is our "very present help."
It was two years later that I realized the healing, at this time, of frequent severe attacks of rheumatism, lumbago, and susceptibility to colds. The first demonstration through my own slight understanding was the overcoming of a terrific headache when company had arrived for dinner. Alone for a moment, I declared, "The truth about anything is all there is about it," and, "One is my Master, even Christ." In ten minutes all pain ceased.
