Often in Wednesday testimony meetings held in Christian Science churches one hears expressions of gratitude for a severe testing time, and the individual who is young in the study of Christian Science may wonder why one would rejoice over affliction. But the older student knows that seemingly difficult experiences, rightly viewed, carry the reward of a growing spiritual understanding that ultimates in victory over the claims of matter. A child may spend an entire evening wrestling with a problem which a mathematician could solve for him in a few moments. But another's assumption of the work would never increase the child's understanding of mathematics, whereas the exercise of patience, reason, and discipline will.
Mary Baker Eddy writes in "The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany" (p. 166): "Life's ills are its chief recompense; they develop hidden strength. Had I never suffered for The Mother Church, neither she nor I would be practising the virtues that lie concealed in the smooth seasons and calms of human existence." By this Mrs. Eddy does not imply that we must have long, hard experiences. Far from it! She well knew the holy joy of experiencing and witnessing instantaneous healings. And Christian Scientists throughout the world are today bearing witness to the availability of Truth in immediate release from all types of bondage. But sometimes the hardest lesson is the one best learned. It is for the learning of the lesson, not its difficulty, that we are grateful, just as the child, happy in the gaining of the correct mathematical solution, remembers not the mental wrestlings incidental thereto.
A Christian Scientist well recalls such a ripening experience of some years ago in which the verity of the Apostle Paul's words (II Cor. 4:17), "For our light affliction, which is but for a moment, worketh for us a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory," was proved anew. Over a period of several weeks a painful physical difficulty had not yielded to metaphysical treatment, and self-pity and discouragement were beginning to appear in her thought. One morning the experience of Jacob, as related in the thirty-second chapter of Genesis, came to her remembrance. She recalled that when Jacob was returning to his own country, filled with fear lest the brother whom he had wronged years before would avenge himself by destroying both Jacob and his family, he had wrestled all night with material sense. As dawn came, an angel appeared to him, and the patriarch would not loose his hold upon the angelic messenger until he had received the blessing of a transformed nature. Startled, the Scientist thought: Why, this seeming difficulty cannot harm or frighten me! It can only be the means of blessing me. Now I must be alert enough to perceive, and obedient enough to receive, that blessing.
