While my husband and I were vacationing, I walked up some wooden steps from our beach. Unknown to us, yellow jackets had built a nest beneath the steps, and my footsteps disturbed the nest. As I reached the top, my legs were severely stung. I could hardly walk, but I was able to reach the cottage and lie down on the bed.
A Christian Science practitioner was called for help. Her first words were: "Jesus said, 'Arise, take up thy bed, and go unto thine house'" (Matt. 9: 6). Since it was difficult to read lying down, with some help from my husband I got up into a chair and turned to page 393 in Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy. There the statement is made, "Have no fear that matter can ache, swell, and be inflamed as the result of a law of any kind, when it is self-evident that matter can have no pain nor inflammation." I read on for about an hour, at the end of which time I found I was hungry and decided to prepare something to eat. I got up out of the chair and found that I could walk. The pain had all gone and by the next day the swelling and stiffness also had disappeared.
For this healing and the manifestation of God's care I am very grateful.
I am grateful that my husband and I had the happiness of attending the Christian Science Sunday School, for membership in The Mother Church and a branch church, and for class instruction.
Seattle, Washington
I am happy to confirm my wife's testimony and to express my gratitude for God's ever-present care and for the teachings of Christian Science.
Through the years of study and church activity we have shared many proofs of the efficacy of Christian Science in our daily lives. One which we shared was meeting the problem of war and its effect upon our lives.
I volunteered for active duty in the Navy when this country entered the Second World War. Immediately there arose a need to overcome a sense of personal fear, together with the consequences of all the disruptions to our family and my business career. As we prayed and worked together on this problem, the thought came to me that I, as the image and likeness of God, had to be about my Father's business. Especially pertinent was the example of the twelve-year-old Jesus' experience in the temple discussion with the doctors as told in Luke's Gospel, and his reply to his mother when she reproved him for having caused such anxiety by absenting himself from their caravan (2:49): "How is it that ye sought me? wist ye not that I must be about my Father's business?" I worked to know that God's business was not a perilous business; that, as His reflection, I could not harm nor be harmed; that I was not just a number on a card in the Navy's Bureau of Personnel, but God's image.
The situation was discussed in some detail with the teacher of Christian Science with whom my wife and I had taken class instruction. He referred me to Mrs. Eddy's treatise on "Seedtime and Harvest" in her book Unity of Good. On page 8 is the question, "Is anything real of which the physical senses are cognizant?" Mrs. Eddy answers, "Everything is as real as you make it, and no more so." On page 11 of the same treatise the statement is made, "Jesus taught us to walk over, not into or with, the currents of matter, or mortal mind." And on the same page, "Jesus required neither cycles of time nor thought in order to mature fitness for perfection and its possibilities." I studied, prayed, and worked daily to improve my thought and gain a better understanding of these statements.
I completed satisfactorily my training, undergoing physical conditioning and the rigors attendant thereto, and all the required inoculations, with no ill effects.
Upon completion of my training I received orders to duties for which I was appropriately qualified both by training and experience and was able to carry out those duties properly. From that time on throughout my entire wartime and peacetime career as a Naval Reserve officer until my retirement I increasingly experienced assignment to duties that I was specially qualified and best fitted to perform, even earning commendation from my superior officers for what they considered outstanding performance. My total naval experience was one of great happiness and satisfaction, and one in which I felt my talents and qualifications always had been employed most appropriately.
I am grateful that application of the teachings of Christian Science has enabled me to demonstrate in some degree that I have been "about my Father's business."
