When I first started to explore the teachings of Christian Science, there were two small lumps in one of my breasts. Yet this had nothing to do with what prompted me to purchase Science and Health and pore over its contents with absorbed interest. I simply longed to understand God. And, quite frankly, it hadn't occurred to me that there could be any connection between my pursuit of spiritual understanding and my physical well-being. Nevertheless, within just a few days of study and of becoming enlightened and inspired by what I was learning of God, those lumps disappeared.
Throughout years of study and practice since then, I've drawn many useful lessons from that unexpected healing—not the least of which is that giving our attention wholeheartedly to God, rather than focusing thought on the body, is good for our health.
Science and Health sheds light on what the Bible teaches about God's nature. When we're filled with love for God and drink in the reality of His nature, we pick up all kinds of reliable information about ourselves. We see that because God is Spirit, absolute good, and the only creator, we must be spiritual, good, and whole, not material and discordant. We must be governed by Him. In this scientific—and holy—realization, discords that we've thought of as part of us just don't seem credible or real to us anymore. That's when healing occurs; that's when those particular discords disappear from our lives. This is what caused those lumps to disappear from my body: in the precious realization of Spirit as the real and only substance of being (including my being), they no longer seemed one bit substantial to me.
