LAST YEAR, I HAD a small growth at the base of my neck that had grown larger over time, making me self-conscious. Praying on and off for healing over several months, I felt I wasn't making much progress. I called a Christian Science practitioner and we prayed together to know that divine Mind, or God, was telling me what is true about myself, not physical symptoms.
In my prayers, I was inspired by Mary Baker Eddy's statement from Science and Health, "Observe mind instead of body." The whole sentence reads: "Observe mind instead of body, lest aught unfit for development enter thought" (p. 419). I realized that by looking at myself as a material body with a growth on my neck, I was never going to get the true picture of myself as God's child — a perfect, spiritual idea, without blemish.
I knew I had to turn away from what the body was presenting to my thought and get in tune with the fact that "all is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation ..." (Science and Health, p. 468) — that God, Mind, is all-knowing and He created me perfect as His idea. I saw that God has such a wonderful, spiritual view of us. He is always communicating this spiritual view to me, and His view is what constitutes my being. I thought of God as like the sun, which warms and illuminates, and my job was simply to turn to that light of Truth.
I continued with my prayers, but one day while discussing that week's Bible Lesson with my sister. I complained about feeling inadequate or unable to heal the situation. It felt too hard to focus on giving myself a treatment through Christian Science prayer.
My sister insisted we do a treatment right then and there. First we talked about how I needed to nullify the false belief that I was unable to be healed. I knew that because God is good, the source of everything real, that something incurable couldn't really exist and that He did not create me to be discouraged. God doesn't send forth any imperfect idea, so no flaw could attach itself to me. I declared that anything that contradicted God's allness, like a malformation, was simply an illusion. God formed everything and it's good. These facts have been proven through the healing work of Christ Jesus and Mary Baker Eddy, and I took a stand that I wouldn't doubt the truth of these facts. I declared, "I am at the point of perfection now."
I held on to these truths and within a few days, the growth entirely dissolved and was gone, as if it had never existed, and I saw that in God's unchanging presence, it never had. This happened almost one year ago and the growth has not returned. I rejoiced in the fact that Christian Science does heal.
I'm very grateful for this healing, but much more grateful for my clearer understanding that each of us is undoubtedly God's expression, pure, complete, spiritual, and perfect. These truths melt the shadows and reveal that God's omnipresent good always has been and ever will be present.
SAN DIEGO, CALIFORNIA, US
