Several years ago I began experiencing severe chest pains on occasion during the night. I was fearful I might pass on, so each time this happened I rose from bed and paced the floor, praying. I declared silently and then aloud every spiritual truth that came to thought. I declared that I was not afraid and that the victory over the mortal claim of sickness had already been won by Christ Jesus. He had already proved to the world God’s omnipotence—the supremacy of Spirit over matter—through his resurrection from the grave. Knowing that God is Spirit and that His creation is entirely spiritual, Jesus met every claim of the carnal mind as its master. As a faithful follower, so could I.
“I and my Father are one,” Jesus said (John 10:30), establishing the demonstrable truth of man’s oneness with God as His reflection, or image and likeness. I had full faith that man is the perfect, immortal likeness of the Divine. I was certain of God’s omnipotence. I rejoiced that God was imparting to me the spiritual understanding of His unchanging goodness and my identity as the forever spiritual reflection of the infinite. And I persisted in my prayers.
At times this was a struggle amid the clamor of the material senses insisting on the reality of pain, but I felt supported and strengthened by a host of angel-messages from God. I felt divine Love’s embrace.
In the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy states with healing authority, “It breaks the dream of disease to understand that sickness is formed by the human mind, not by matter nor by the divine Mind” (p. 396). The aggressive claim I was facing had to be seen and met as a false suggestion or dream, and not an actual physical condition.
In the wee hours one morning, a verse from Hymn 412 in the Christian Science Hymnal came to mind. A relative had been instantaneously healed of bronchial pneumonia while pondering the words of the hymn, and it was one I had memorized. It begins:
O dreamer, leave thy dreams for joyful
waking,
O captive, rise and sing, for thou
art free;
The Christ is here, all dreams of error
breaking,
Unloosing bonds of all captivity.
(Rosa M. Turner, © CSBD)
In a moment, the healing came. In the same moment, the dream of suffering evaporated. The pain left and never recurred. This entire healing occurred within the space of a few months. The Christ, the eternal Truth demonstrated by Jesus, awakened me to the impotence of matter and the allness, all-power, and supremacy of Spirit. Every day I rise and sing, for I am free!
Charlene Anne Miller
Jenera, Ohio, US
