The acknowledgment of our blessings is so much a part of Christian Science that I feel impelled to tell of the help it has been to me.
When I was widowed and left with a small son to raise, I returned to my parents' home. I had become interested in Christian Science, for I felt it was an enlightened religion. This interest was tolerated by my parents as something that was perhaps helping me mentally and emotionally, but when it came to my applying Christian Science to physical problems, I ran into opposition from them. This made life very difficult for me and caused considerable inharmony in the home.
I am grateful to the practitioner whom I turned to for showing me that Christian Science is the Science of Christianity, which is in accord with the Decalogue and the teachings of Jesus as expounded in his Sermon on the Mount. The practitioner explained that Christian Science includes physical healing because healing was a basic part of the teaching of Jesus, and she pointed out the words of Mary Baker Eddy in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (Pref., p. xi), "The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation."
The practitioner's work brought out in me a desire to be tender and patient with my parents. This expression of divine Love became increasingly important as they grew older, and it finally bore fruit when my mother at the age of eighty-seven was healed in Christian Science of a serious mental malady. From then until she was ninety-two she daily studied the weekly Lesson-sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly.
Christian Science has been a wonderful help to me in raising my son and has guided him in the path of spiritual unfoldment. He was untouched by most of the so-called childhood diseases, but the help of a practitioner was necessary in the case of a severe attack of influenza, which was healed almost instantaneously. A more severe test came when blood poisoning had to be overcome. This healing took about three weeks because there was great fear in my own thinking.
During the last eighteen years I have relied on Christian Science entirely for physical healing. It has met my need by lifting my thought above my problems and by giving me courage to stand for Truth. The words of our Leader in describing moral courage are a great inspiration to me (Science and Health, p. 514): "Moral courage is 'the lion of the tribe of Juda,' the king of the mental realm. Free and fearless it roams in the forest. Undisturbed it lies in the open field, or rests in 'green pastures,...beside the still waters.'" These words are a continual reminder to me that moral courage is unchallenged and unchallengeable by material-mindedness or aggressive mental suggestion; so we need never be deterred from demonstrating the fact that Christian Science heals. For this fact I am humbly grateful.— Los Angeles, California.
I was about eleven when my grandmother became ill and was healed in Christian Science. I remember her going through a very unhappy period when she was not herself, and then I remember her recovering. The recovery came about through her reading Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. During the years that followed she was exceedingly sweet and agreeable as she continued peacefully to read Christian Science literature. I can confirm my own healings, especially the one of blood poisoning, which happened when I was about fourteen. There were quite severe manifestations, and it required the persistent and consecrated work of a practitioner to overcome the difficulty. I am grateful to have had these and other proofs of the efficacy of Christian Science.— Beverly Hills, California.
