Such great gratitude fills my thought when I realize what Christian Science has done for me and my children that I want to share my happiness in the hope of helping someone who needs help. It was nineteen years ago that curiosity led me to a Church of Christ, Scientist, and from the first I was overjoyed with its teachings. They pointed up all the wonderful truths in the Bible to which I had never been awake before.
My two children were entered in the Christian Science Sunday School, and through the application of the truth, so-called children's diseases were quickly routed. During a polio epidemic one of my sons manifested symptoms of the disease and could not walk. I instantly turned away from the material picture and refused to accept mortal mind's verdict. Then I called a Christian Science practitioner, saying: "I don't understand how this condition could possibly manifest itself on my child when I kept knowing the epidemic could not touch him."
The practitioner said, "In reality there is no epidemic, because there is no polio."
At once I saw my mistake. When I returned to the bedroom, the little boy asked for a toy which was in another room, and I told him to run and get it. I did not watch him, but instead opened Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy and read on page 534: "Paul says in his epistle to the Romans: 'The carnal mind is enmity against God; for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwell in you.'" In a moment I heard my son's feet touch the floor, and he ran into the room and got his toy. Later he dressed and remained up all day. That was the end of the trouble.
More recently this same child, now grown and in the Army, wrote me, "I'm learning more and more to call mortal mind's bluff." At the time this letter came I had a lump on the roof of my mouth and a swelling on the inside of one cheek, which were quite painful. A Christian Science practitioner had worked for me several days. The pain would abate, but would start again. One night, after a week of this suffering, I was trying to sleep and could not. Suddenly I remembered my son's statement in his letter, and I said: "Why, of course, mortal mind, you are only a bluff. Jesus called you a liar. You are the talking serpent, and I don't have to believe you, for I am free born, as Paul said of himself." I fell asleep in a few minutes, and in the morning the lump and all the swelling had vanished.
One lesson I have had to learn over and over again is that we do not heal sick matter. It is the thought that is healed. The discordant condition is reduced to nothingness by the knowledge of God's allness and man's oneness, or unity, with Him. In reality there is no matter to be sick, and what appears to be sick is never sick at all. In learning this truth, I have found much help in the Bible verse (Ps. 56:4), "In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me."
I am so grateful for the many healings with which my family and I have been blessed in Christian Science. In addition, I am grateful for protection while traveling a busy highway twice daily. I know there are no accidents in divine Mind, and this one Mind includes all others as well as myself. I am also very grateful for supply and a desirable position which unfolded by my holding to the thought of God's law of progress.
Christian Science reveals the Comforter promised by Jesus (John 14:16): "I will pray the Father, and he shall give you another Comforter, that he may abide with you for ever."— Ashland, Virginia.
