Having been raised in Christian Science, I have for many years been reading from the Bible and Science and Health. But Science and Health has recently become for me an even more indispensable way to unlock the deeper meanings of the Bible.
A recent healing I had came as a result of understanding better the connection between the Scriptures and Science and Health and how that helps to foster greater spiritual growth. My learning resulted in a physical healing. I had developed a back strain that caused me considerable pain. The problem seemed to be related to menopause with all of the negative thoughts that are sometimes associated with it. The pain had come on rather suddenly and continued for several days.
As I prayed, I remembered the book of Job in the Bible. I love the lessons that book has for our spiritual progress. Job spent most of his time sitting on an ash heap bemoaning his condition with his friends Eliphaz, Bildad, and Zophar. These were old familiar friends. Taken as a mental example, the story shows me how we all probably spend too much time sitting on our ash heap of materiality and discussing our plight with our old familiar mental friends. I certainly was doing that in this situation. My mental "friends," however, were false beliefs about man named age, material changes, and the supposed phases of womanhood. I was having a lively conversation with these friends about my condition and not challenging their reality. I also recognized similarities between Job's example of a mental argument and the allegorical trial of liver complaint in Science and Health (see pp. 430-442).
