By 1980 I was beginning to feel the financial, family, and social impact of widowhood, and it had me very unhappy. I had to leave Arkansas, where I had made a good life and friends, in order to find suitable employment. My house was sold, and my two daughters were away at college.
After moving to Chicago to live with my brother, I found a wonderful job. During this period of life I noticed a soreness in one of my breasts. Sometimes the soreness was uncomfortable, but most of the time it was throbbing. Suddenly I realized the condition might be more serious than I’d thought. A few years earlier the wife of a prominent New York politician had undergone major surgery for breast cancer, and the media spared few details when reporting on it. The fear it generated among the public lasted a long time.
While I had no idea what the condition was that I was facing, I wanted to maintain a peaceful thought, and I didn’t want any fears expressed to me about what it could be. God had helped me many times before, and I knew He was helping me now. I quickly found this psalm in the Bible: “In God I will praise his word, in God I have put my trust; I will not fear what flesh can do unto me” (Psalms 56:4). I felt that this was God’s promise to me and I would take Him at His word. So, every time I felt discomfort, I mentally went to God, my protector, and affirmed the truth of that verse, always expecting my prayer to be answered. I was quickly relieved of any suffering.
I continued praying with this psalm and the Bible Lessons from the Christian Science Quarterly, as well as the ideas in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. Although I went from my regular size 14 down to an eight, because of that wonderful psalm I was not frightened. I prayed that no one would think me sick—and they never did. I never missed a day of work and expected a complete healing. I genuinely felt I had been delivered from this illness before the physical symptoms disappeared, because I knew that with God all things are possible.
About three years later, as I was driving down the boulevard, I felt something running down my skin, just under my arm. When I arrived home and took off my blouse to wash, I noticed that the skin in the area had opened and drained. That was the end of the soreness there. The healing occurred almost 30 years ago and has been complete.
I thank God for His care and love for me and all. And I am grateful to my parents for enrolling me in the Christian Science Sunday School at such an early age, and to Mrs. Eddy for bringing the Comforter to us through Science and Health.
Little Rock, Arkansas, US
