Many of the testimonies in this magazine tell the story of someone who received an inspiring spiritual idea from God that helped that individual overcome and heal a difficulty he or she was facing. These testimonies provide wonderful examples of demonstrations of God’s love. Many of them describe a change, or spiritual transformation, in the consciousness of the testifier. This spiritual transformation comes through prayer, inspiration, and the study of Christian Science. And following this spiritual change in thought comes healing.
So, once thought is changed spiritually, healing is often pretty simple; it just happens! However, sometimes it may not be clear how to experience this spiritual change in thought. Over a year ago, I had an experience that taught me more about this.
I found myself feeling a small discomfort in my back, which I initially ignored. Over the next couple of months the discomfort began to worsen into a pain that affected me most of the day and limited my mobility. I knew I needed to address this issue. As a student of Christian Science, it was natural for me to turn to the healing guidance Mary Baker Eddy provides in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, and to the Bible. I was sure that the back pain was something I could overcome in my thought, through prayer.
I thought back to those uplifting testimonies I had read in this magazine, and I knew I could be healed. However, my thoughts about how to be healed went like this: “All I need to do is find the one thing that’s wrong in my thought, and I will be all set.”
I mentally scoured all aspects of my life to try to figure out how I needed to change the way I was thinking, but I didn’t feel any sense of direction in my prayer. It may come as no surprise, but this approach was not bringing healing. I spent weeks looking for “the problem” in my thought, and I experienced nothing but worsening discomfort. Clearly, my approach needed to change.
I discussed this with a family member, and he asked me why I hadn’t called a Christian Science practitioner. I felt guilty about asking someone else to pray for me when I hadn’t figured out how to pray for myself. I also didn’t want anyone else’s help. But my family member helped me to seek the help I needed to ensure the error would be uncovered and destroyed.
As Mrs. Eddy advises in Science and Health: “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” (p. 420). This shined a light on the mesmeric thinking that was holding me back. I contacted a practitioner, who immediately began praying for me and giving me Christian Science treatment.
I still couldn’t move without discomfort, but I felt a sense of freedom, mentally, that had been missing for a long time. I began to see that healing begins when we turn wholeheartedly to God and just feel His love for us. We can do that whether we have been facing an illness or difficulty for ten seconds or ten years. Nothing can really hold us back from feeling the embrace of God’s love. This approach to healing already seemed to be working much better.
The practitioner told me how much God loved me. I had been hoping the practitioner would point out the error in my thinking, but instead I learned that error is revealed to us as we grow in our understanding of God and His love and truth. God’s angel messages, His spiritual thoughts, are always flowing to us, ready to guide and comfort us. This spiritual inspiration from God elevates and transforms our thinking, giving us a better, truer view of our spiritual identity, which naturally leads to healing.
Christ Jesus taught: “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Matthew 6:6). Mrs. Eddy expounds on this in Science and Health: “In the quiet sanctuary of earnest longings, we must deny sin and plead God’s allness. We must resolve to take up the cross, and go forth with honest hearts to work and watch for wisdom, Truth, and Love” (p. 15). Healing comes through pleading God’s allness, yielding to His love, and actively striving to express His goodness in our lives.
Through this approach of actively striving to express God more fully in my life, I began to realize that I needed to adjust my attitude at work. I was constantly feeling swamped with a never-ending list of tasks, and I was no longer managing my team with gratitude and joy. The practitioner had emailed me ideas about how God’s love is for everyone and how we all express God’s perfection. These healing truths were exactly what I needed to understand more clearly about my colleagues and about myself, especially when I was at work. Whenever I would feel myself slumping in my chair, I reminded myself how I needed to be alert to God and the truth that He was revealing to my consciousness. The truth was that, as God’s reflection, I always had unlimited spiritual ideas from God, and not a single one of my thoughts could ever really be lacking in joy, love, or fulfillment.
While I had always valued my job, I began to really enjoy and look forward to it each day, as I recognized God’s complete care for all of us. I went to work committed to expressing God’s love for me and my co-workers. I began to feel less burdened by my managerial responsibilities because I knew I could rely on God, the source of all true goodness and knowledge, for wisdom and strength.
Within a week I was feeling much better. A change in posture didn’t heal me; the progress was brought about by turning to God. However, even though I was feeling much better, I still had some lingering discomfort, and I wanted to experience complete healing.
I realized that I had been procrastinating on sending remuneration to the practitioner. The last piece of my healing was to fill my heart with gratitude for the practitioner’s work. Paying the practitioner signified my gratitude, and it also helped me to stop mentally clinging to the pain as a reality and to fully yield to God’s healing love. I received an email from the practitioner acknowledging he had received the payment, and reminding me of my true spiritual identity. He said there never was any material pain that needed to be healed; I only needed to acknowledge my spiritual identity.
I felt God’s love so strongly with that message, and I knew I had had my complete healing. And indeed I woke up the next day completely free. This healing helped confirm for me that all the time that I had spent digging for error in my thoughts was time when I really needed to be turning upward to hear what God was telling me. I didn’t need to be rooting through mortal mind looking for a problem. God was always there showing me the truth about myself, and as I discovered and accepted this truth, I was healed.
John Raffles
Chicago, Illinois, US
