THE WONDERFUL THING about a Christian Science healing is that it leaves you not only well, but with some new insight or understanding about your relationship with God. And often, that's the most memorable part of the healing.
One day a few years ago, I began to experience sudden constrictions around my chest that were knocking the wind out of me. These seizures recurred every few hours, and became stronger and more painful. I didn't know what the condition would be called, but I felt it was serious enough to stay home from work to deal with it. I called a Christian Science practitioner to help me redirect my thinking away from fear and pain to confidence in God's presence and healing power. The practitioner shared several comforting ideas, and suggested a few passages from the Bible and Science and Health for me to read. She agreed to give me specific, prayerful Christian Science treatment, while I went off to read the passages and see what meaning they held for me.
The seizures continued into the next day. I called the practitioner again and told her that I felt I understood the logic and Science of the passages she'd given me, but that I did not feel God's love—and that I wasn't particularly feeling love for Him, either. It reminds me of the verse from First John, "We love him, because he first loved us" (4:19). I felt I had a bad case of understanding the words without really getting the spirit of it.
After a thoughtful pause, she asked if I had read the account of Jesus' baptism in that week's Bible Lesson in the Christian Science Quarterly. I had. She then asked if I had found anything in the account for myself. I replied that of course I hadn't—it was all about Christ Jesus! She told me that I should read it again and see what was in it for me.
With some doubts, but still in need of healing, I opened my Bible to the account of Jesus' baptism in Matthew 3:13—17. I began reading, tentatively, respectfully asking God if it really was all right for me to somehow apply some part of that account to myself. Then I came to the place in verse 17, where a voice from heaven says, "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." Clearly, this refers specifically to Christ Jesus. But as I read it, it came to me with an additional layer of meaning: that spiritual man (male and female) described in Genesis 1:26, 27 as the image, the likeness of God, is the man that God has made, as opposed to the false, mortal version of man described in Genesis 2:7 (Adam and Eve). That is a vital distinction. And I saw that God, Spirit, is very pleased indeed with the man of His creating—the spiritual man of Genesis 1.
My immediate response was, Well, I'm that! Having grown up in a Christian Science family, I'd been told since childhood that I am God's spiritual child, His idea, His image and likeness. But then I realized something had been really missing in my conception of what that meant. Over the next few seconds an understanding started to unfold in my thinking, concept by concept. I realized that although I'd never consciously thought this out, I had been living under the vague misconception that God had specifically and intentionally created His "only begotten Son," Jesus Christ (which of course He did), but that all the rest of us were the rather indistinct, incidental side effects of God expressing Himself.
Now for the first time, it dawned on me that God knowingly, even intentionally, created the idea that is me, just as intentionally as He had created the idea named Christ Jesus. He had actually made me on purpose! I was astonished. And I could feel that it was true. I was also aware that it was true of every single one who has ever existed—that God wants each and every one of us to exist, or else we wouldn't! And being God-created, we are permanent. This is confirmed in this Bible passage, "I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever" (Eccl. 3:14). And not only that. God is also delighted with His creation. I sat there in amazement. In awe. In gratitude. In love.
And those seizures? They simply ceased. I knew without a doubt that I was God-established, that He had decided that I should be, and any attempt to challenge my being was futile. I knew I was "beloved." And I was healed.
Since that time, this understanding of our God-determined existence has been helpful to me in various ways. The awareness of being God-established has given me a wonderful sense of security. Remembering that God has lovingly determined that every one of us is to exist has given me a basis for loving my "enemies." And when my loved ones have passed on, knowing the permanence of their individual existence has truly comforted me. I am so grateful to God for His initial and perpetual love. I love Him for it.
PETERBOROUGH, NEW HAMPSHIRE, US
