OUR revered Leader, Mrs. Eddy, tells us firmly but lovingly (Science and Health, p. 14): "Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual,—neither in nor of matter—and the body will then utter no complaints. If suffering from a belief in sickness, you will find yourself suddenly well."
A student of Christian Science, while on an ocean voyage, became ill from food poisoning. The suffering was so intense that it seemed impossible for her to think clearly. She humbly turned to God and asked Him to open her thought to the vital truth she needed at that instant. The quotation just given, with which she had been familiar for years, filled her consciousness so forcefully that she said to herself: "Certainly, I can become conscious of the divine fact of spiritual existence, not for a moment but for eternity, for in my true selfhood I can never be really conscious of anything else. I might believe the opposite, but the real man in God's image can never be conscious of it."
To be conscious of a fact means to be mentally aware of it. As the Scientist became actively conscious of the fact that she was, and had eternally been, a divine idea of divine Mind, a perfect child of perfect God, she found herself "suddenly well." What she actually found was her real selfhood as an expression of God, of eternal Life, of eternal health, eternal perfection. Her thought then turned to these verses in the ninetieth Psalm which brought final assurance of complete healing: "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations. Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever thou hadst formed the earth and the world, even from everlasting to everlasting, thou art God."
