QUESTIONS:
Why am I not being healed as quickly now as when I first started studying Christian Science?—FROM A CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PRACTITIONER WORKSHOP
A1 While teaching my sons to hit a baseball, I found they quickly connected with my easy tosses. But hitting during games was harder. Why? Because the opposing pitcher threw at different speeds and locations to keep them off balance. Just so, healing often comes quickly when we first practice Christian Science. We may feel little resistance at first. But as we continue, healing can seem more difficult—like connecting with a curveball that bends out of reach, or the fastball that intimidates. To continue the baseball analogy, we may even feel that we're striking out.
Every healing proves that whatever is opposed to God is evil, therefore unreal. However, until we fully understand God's allness, and thereby prove evil's unreality, evil will continue to resist spirituality with more and more urgency. Seeing evil as powerless can demand greater spiritual growth on our part.
When a healing is delayed, it's important to detect evil's claim to reality—in the guise of fear, selfishness, pride, hate, and so on—which bogs down spiritual progress. This self-examination speeds healing. To the extent we understand that we are the perfect, spiritual idea of God—sinless and eternal—we are able to overcome these thoughts that obstruct health.
Examining motives is also wise. If our motive in healing is to fix matter, we're trying to make Christian Science fit into a medical model. We are believing in the reality of material existence, all the while hoping, mistakenly, that a system that heals through an understanding of the absolute spiritual nature of existence can help.
Being honest about our progress is essential. Mary Baker Eddy counseled: "If students do not readily heal themselves, they should early call an experienced Christian Scientist to aid them. If they are unwilling to do this for themselves, they need only to know that error cannot produce this unnatural reluctance" (Science and Health, p. 420).
Just as important, let's not allow evil to have a say in our lives. Wondering, "Why am I not being healed?" gives life to the lie that evil is real and powerful. Jesus gave the answer that counters evil's demand for relevance. He cast out evil and proved that God's Word heals.
CORPUS CHRISTI, TEXAS, US
A2 Simply stated, a healing in Christian Science is a revealing of the perfection that exists where imperfection appears. It is not adding to, or changing, anything that is real. Healing involves discovery, and discovering usually involves what the word implies: uncovering the facts. This discovery can come instantaneously or by degrees, but the more advanced our study of Christian Science, the more "digging" is usually involved. Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, counseled, "Wait patiently for divine Love to move upon the waters of mortal mind, and form the perfect concept" (Science and Health, p. 454).
Actually, having to spend time finding a particular healing truth is a positive and not a negative. Hundreds of testimonies, many of them published in this magazine, relate the healing messages people received when praying about a difficult problem. When looking back at a situation, our viewpoint is often colored by present circumstances. Earlier challenges may appear either harder or easier according to the present viewpoint. It is important not to let the time involved distract us and to get on with the healing work. Someday, we will so clearly perceive the reality of God's goodness and allness that we will no longer have to pray for healing, for there will be nothing to be healed—"And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:31). I am convinced that every spiritual healing is worth the effort and time involved, for we gain a better understanding of the truly wonderful spiritual identity of each one of us, and become better healers.
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS, US
When I pray, how do I separate matter from spirit?—FROM A CHRISTIAN SCIENCE PRACTITIONER WORKSHOP
A1 If you mean how to lose sight of a problem and see spiritual reality, health, and harmony, you could ask yourself, "What is the subject of my prayer?" Is it to know God—Life, Truth, Love—better? Or is it simply to escape from a problem? Science and Health describes healing prayer as a spiritual understanding of God, which to me involves an inspired view of God that puts any situation in a spiritual light. God is always the subject of healing prayer. A focus on a problem keeps fear front and center. Fear—a belief in material conditions and effects—is not a healer. Rather, fear always gives a sense of being separated from God and makes problems seem substantial, powerful, and real. The true understanding of God has the power to completely transform human experience.
When a condition seems deeply ingrained—as in an acute diseased condition or a long-standing character flaw—it can feel as though some sort of solid evil has invaded one's life or body, and needs to be cast out. It is then essential to realize that matter, with its vulnerability and limitations, has never mingled or joined with Spirit, God—our true and only substance.
Prayer doesn't "separate" matter from spirit. Prayer based on an understanding of God and divine law shows matter and disease to be unreal, and health and harmony to be the normal condition of life. Your prayer can deny matter, fear, and limitation as a power or presence in your life. Yield all attention and interest to Spirit. This heightened awareness of what constitutes God and your true identity will naturally lift your thought away from a preoccupation with matter. Here, healing is found.
PARIS, FRANCE
A2 The intelligent activity enabling us to see the distinction between matter and spirit is God's power expressed in us as the Christ. This Christ—God's pure activity working in human consciousness—allows us to discern what is true and so separate truth from the belief that keeps us thinking that our identity is material. To do this, our thoughts must squarely turn to God, Spirit. As we grasp what Spirit or God is, and therefore what we are as His image and likeness, we can clearly see that materiality directly opposes spirituality.
This is how we can reach, through prayer, the Christly consciousness that heals. And erroneous thought brings with it its suggested wrong state of being: sinful behavior, disease, suffering, limitations. God, Mind, is infinite, and all thoughts included in this Mind reflect Him, ruling out whatever opposes God's laws—because these laws rule out all lies of opposites. As thoughts are purified and rectified under Spirit's influence, what has always been true—our identity as the perfect reflection of a perfect God—appears as "improvements" in our lives. And so the baneful effects, or errors they seem to embody, disappear. Here is the standpoint in Christian Science where healing occurs while praying. Matter is a subjective state of thought and not made up of hard, constituted objects or things. Science and Health states, "Science shows that what is termed matter is but the subjective state of what is termed by the author mortal mind" (p. 114). This is the source of our freedom—an understanding that divine Mind is our only Mind.
KINSHASA, DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC OF CONGO
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