A FEW YEARS AGO, I experienced the powerful and immediate healing effect of Christian Science prayer. At a high school where I used to work, I was privileged to help coach the junior varsity track team. On a hot midspring Saturday morning I helped put on a small track meet with just our own junior varsity team competing. It was a lighthearted and competitive atmosphere where our younger athletes could learn about the nuances and basic structure of a track meet and try some new events.
Just for fun, another coach and I each joined a relay team for the final event of the meet. I have long been a regular runner, and was looking forward to racing around the track with the kids. The temperatures that day were forecast to reach past 90 degrees Fahrenheit, and as I stood eagerly waiting to run my leg of the race, I noticed how hot it had gotten outside. But when the baton came closer to me I forgot about temperature and refocused on having fun and expressing childlike enthusiasm while I ran.
Bolting around the track as fast as I could, I crossed the finish line with a speedy time. Although the race was hard, I felt great afterward. But a little later, as I was cleaning up from the meet and talking with some friends, I began to feel lightheaded and was quickly losing the ability to stand. My friends there were also Christian Scientists, and, as I stumbled over to a fence, I called for someone to pray for me. One of them rushed over to help me, and I collapsed in his arms. He immediately began declaring that God was present with me at that very moment. As I listened to him, I couldn't move or speak and it felt like my body was completely shutting down. I was fighting to stay conscious.
At first my thought was bombarded with dark and fearful suggestions that this could be a heat stroke and that I was in danger. Then shining through the darkness came the simple thought that "... man is made in the image and likeness of God" (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, p. 475). I knew that being created by God meant that I was His beloved child, governed and sustained by His love. At that moment, I made a choice to see myself as that child—a spiritual idea—instead of continuing to let fearful thoughts flood my consciousness.
Though I couldn't move my body, my conscious thought and ability to commune with God were not impaired in the least. I heard my friend whispering "the scientific statement of being" from Science and Health (see p. 468). I tried to respond to him, but still couldn't talk, so I just listened to the truth being spoken to me.
Mrs. Eddy says in another part of Science and Health, "The good you do and embody gives you the only power obtainable" (p. 192). I knew that the good I'd done that day was my own Christlike expression of Truth and innocence. The thought I remember holding on to most tightly, though, was simply the fact that God was my Life. I knew that no matter what the body appeared to be reporting, I could never be separated from divine Life, God, which governs and nurtures each of us at every moment. This reasoning helped rid me of all the aggressive fears creeping into my thought about me possibly losing consciousness or worse. I knew I could never lose my conscious communion with God. Firmly holding on to these truths for a couple of minutes, I soon felt a growing sense of peace.
Then, as quickly as the symptoms had come, they totally disappeared and my strength was fully restored. Immediately I was able to lift myself up and I could talk again. Feeling free from fear, the next day I went for a long run on another hot afternoon and I had no ill affects whatsoever.
A couple days later, as I was sharing gratitude for this experience with my two friends who had been present, they both mentioned that while at first they were uncertain of what was happening to me, they could tell that I had immediately begun to pray for myself, and they, too, had both silently prayed. The three of us rejoiced in the healing power of God. This was a truly remarkable healing for me. Mrs. Eddy says in the Manual of The Mother Church, "I recommend that each member of this Church shall strive to demonstrate by his or her practice, that Christian Science heals the sick quickly and wholly, thus proving this Science to be all that we claim for it" (p. 92). I am truly grateful for the quick and whole healing power of Christian Science.
ELSAH, ILLINOIS, US
We invite readers to submit testimonies of Christian Science healing for publication. Please e-mail testimonies to: jshwrite@csps.com
Or by mail to:
Journal Testimonies
The Christian Science Publishing Society
210 Massachusetts Avenue, P03–30
Boston, MA 02115 US
