During college I started suffering from painful headaches. I took strong painkillers, but often even these wouldn't work. I'd been raised in Christian Science, but I'd turned away from it during college. Some time after graduation I began studying Christian Science again. About four years ago I began praying diligently about this difficulty with headaches.
I prayed to realize that headaches are no part of my true heritage as a child of God. Intellectually, I could understand that no painful condition is part of man, who is in reality God's image and likeness, but often I couldn't feel the spirit, the joy, of this spiritual fact. Nevertheless, step by step I took a stand for my freedom as God's child.
I studied the description of man in Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy that begins: "Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements." It continues, "Man is spiritual and perfect; and because he is spiritual and perfect, he must be so understood in Christian Science. Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique."
Many times during this struggle I called a Christian Science practitioner for prayerful support. She helped me see that my only true thoughts and feelings come from Soul, God, the source of man's spiritual senses, and that I could reject the supposed reality of pain, fear, and doubt on this spiritual basis. I was learning that if something isn't good, it doesn't come from God who is all-good, and so can't be mine as God's child. I refused to believe that the material senses—no matter how insistent they were—could define me or could take away my joy. Science and Health states: "What is termed material sense can report only a mortal temporary sense of things, whereas spiritual sense can bear witness only to Truth. To material sense, the unreal is the real until this sense is corrected by Christian Science."
If I wasn't suffering from physical pain, I was suffering from the fear of pain and the fear of failure. When I felt uncertain of God's presence, intimidated by pain, I prayed to see that I could experience joy, hope, trust, strength, confidence, and gratitude because these originate in God. The Bible says: "For God hath not given us the spirit of fear; but of power, and of love, and of a sound mind" (II Timothy). Soon the headaches began to lessen.
There were two turning points in this experience. The first one came when I faced the trouble squarely and didn't mentally run away or wish it would somehow magically disappear. I saw that fear flees before the light of Truth. The Bible says, "Resist the devil, and he will flee from you" (James).
One evening I felt mentally assaulted by fear of a headache. The temptation was simply to go to bed or to declare feebly a few spiritual truths about myself and hope for the best. But I knew I was being asked to take much stronger action. As I got ready for bed I declared firmly that no suggestion of evil could ever separate me from God, Love, and that I couldn't be made afraid of anything. To my amazement, I soon realized that I felt unafraid because I knew God, my Father-Mother, and that was always enough. I felt calm inside and was convinced that turning to God always gives us enough strength, conviction, and spiritual understanding to defeat evil. I slept peacefully, and in the morning there wasn't a trace of a headache.
I still struggled, however, with the fear that headaches would always be a part of my life; that they would never go away completely. The second turning point came one day when I was feeling discouraged and went to visit a Christian Science practitioner. He pointed out that the difficulty was not located in my head. Instead, it was the suggestion of animal magnetism (another word for evil or a mind besides God, who is the one divine Mind) that man can be in bondage. This couldn't be true, because God makes His spiritual idea, man, free.
This helped me continue to work out the situation mentally rather than try to change something physically. I never had to deal again with such extreme mental darkness. I continued to have healings. I felt more and more mental freedom. One day I realized I hadn't had a headache for quite a while. I realized I was healed and that, most important, the terrorizing fear was gone. This healing has been complete and permanent.
I am grateful to have learned to be persistent in claiming my God-given freedom. But most of all I am grateful to know God and His Christ as a tangible help in times of fear and pain. This healing has given me a greater love for Christ Jesus and for his devoted follower, Mary Baker Eddy, both of whom labored long and hard to prove that Christianity is practical and powerful. "Thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ" (I Corinthians).
Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts
