As a third-generation Christian Scientist who’s had great role models and many healings, I never expected to confront intense doubts about my faith. But about a decade ago, amid some significant challenges, my confidence in the truth of Mary Baker Eddy’s discovery began to waver—and then pretty much collapsed.
Over the course of a few years, however, a series of angels—spiritual thoughts from God—began to arrive. First they comforted me. Then they helped me see how I could confidently and enthusiastically accept God’s promise of salvation here and now, as uniquely revealed in Christian Science. Soon my faith was restored—and, in fact, expanded. Along the way, I learned five big lessons, which I share here, hoping they’ll help others.
1. I’m hardly the only one who’s ever doubted.
Think of the twelve disciples. For three years, day after day, Christ Jesus’ closest followers witnessed him heal the sick, raise the dead, and give world-changing sermons. For many of them, it didn’t stick—at least not right away. Peter denied him three times. None of them believed Mary Magdalene when she told them Jesus had risen from the grave, according to the book of Luke. And even after they saw him resurrected, many initially went back to their old jobs. To be sure, most of them eventually came around. But if these eyewitnesses to Jesus’ ministry faltered, I didn’t need to feel so alarmed that I was having some trouble.
This didn’t resolve my doubt, but it was comforting context.
2. Jesus’ compassion melted Thomas’ doubt.
In the days after the resurrection, Jesus was headed to meet with his disciples. Just before the meeting, Thomas, who’d only heard from the others that Jesus had risen, declared with material-minded skepticism, “Except I shall see in his hands the print of the nails, and put my finger into the print of the nails, and thrust my hand into his side, I will not believe.”
A less-exalted figure than Jesus might have erupted at Thomas: “Are you kidding me? You’ve seen all I’ve done, heard all I’ve said, and you still didn’t believe those who saw me?” Jesus’ response to Thomas served as a significant rebuke to his disbelief but also showed incredible compassion. He said, essentially, “If this is what you need in order to believe, then go ahead, you can touch me.”
The Master’s unconditional love broke through, as we see in Thomas’ reply, which points to an awakened faith: “My Lord and my God” (see John 20:24–29).
If Christly love was strong enough to melt Thomas’ doubt, I figured it could erase mine too.
3. Hard work and humility are required for spiritual growth.
To be honest, up to that point in my life, I’d never fully lived out Mrs. Eddy’s demand that we “work—work—work—watch and pray” (Message to The Mother Church for 1900, p. 2). Yes, I studied the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, often read the weekly Christian Science Bible Lesson, and went to church regularly. But I wasn’t fully committed mentally. This point was made clear by a blunt angel thought that stopped me in my tracks: “Are you really going to give up on Christian Science before you’ve read Science and Health all the way through?”
As a spiritual child of God, it is natural for me to be attracted to—and accepting of—truth.
Indeed, I’d never read the Christian Science textbook cover to cover. So, after getting a bit more humble, I did. Throughout its seven hundred pages, I circled every instance of the word Spirit, which is a synonym for God; to me Spirit indicates the action of God, as when the Christ enlightens human consciousness. I chose Spirit because of its connection to Genesis 1:2: “And the spirit of God moved upon the face of the waters.” I wanted Spirit to “move upon” and enlighten my consciousness. As I worked my way through the book, I could indeed feel the activity of Spirit erasing the darkness of my doubt.
And a healing helped. When aggressive flu symptoms hit one day, I sat down to call a Christian Science practitioner. But before dialing, I promised myself I would humbly heed the practitioner’s directions—something I’d subtly resisted before. She answered the phone, heard my plea, and said, “The First Commandment is your medicine. Take your medicine.”
Following the First Commandment meant putting God first. To get a better sense of how God, good, is in complete control, I turned to Science and Health’s “scientific statement of being,” which begins, “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.” It continues in part, “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all” (p. 468). I reasoned that if those things are true, then material laws, which mandate sickness and suffering, have no power—and therefore, no power over me. I started to accept this, and I was fully healed in just a few hours.
Hard work, humility, and a healing were further steps in dissolving my doubt.
4. God delivers on His promises, which means I can trust Him.
If someone makes us a promise and keeps it, we start to see them as worth trusting. If someone consistently delivers on their promises, why would we doubt them?
In two specific ways, I started to see more clearly that God consistently keeps His promises to deliver salvation to humanity—and to us individually.
First, I saw Mary of Bethany, Martha’s sister, as an amazing example of trust in the advent of the Messiah. By anointing Jesus with oil, Mary showed her pure trust that Jesus was sent from God to show us the path to salvation (see John 12:1–8). Mary used spikenard, a costly lavender oil, the name of which is translated in part from a Greek word whose root has the meaning, “moral conviction (of religious truth, or the truthfulness of God or a religious teacher), especially reliance upon Christ for salvation” (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance of the Bible). We don’t know if the name of the oil was significant to her, but it was certainly symbolic of her deep trust and reverence for Jesus.
Another woman of faith, Mary Magdalene, was also deeply inspiring (see John 20:1–18). At Jesus’ tomb, after the crucifixion, Peter and John departed before they saw Jesus resurrected. “As yet they knew not the scripture, that he must rise again from the dead.” But Mary Magdalene perhaps knew the Old Testament passages that promised Jesus’ resurrection as part of God’s grand promise of salvation to humanity (see, for example, Job 19:25–27, Psalms 16:10, Isaiah 53:10–12, and Zechariah 12:10). Because she waited, she was first to see and acknowledge Jesus’ return. Through her ready acceptance of Jesus’ reappearance and his coming ascension, Mary’s heart was proved full of faith. Doubt was sealed out.
Second, I started to see how Jesus’ promise was fulfilled in God’s sending the Comforter, divine Science, or the Science of Christ (see John 14:16). In the sixteenth chapter of John, Jesus describes several essential elements of the coming Comforter so we wouldn’t miss it when it arrived. For example, he says: “I have yet many things to say unto you, but ye cannot bear them now. Howbeit when he, the Spirit of truth, is come, he will guide you into all truth” (verses 12, 13). This connects to Mrs. Eddy’s statement: “Our Master healed the sick, practised Christian healing, and taught the generalities of its divine Principle to his students; but he left no definite rule for demonstrating this Principle of healing and preventing disease. This rule remained to be discovered in Christian Science” (Science and Health, p. 147).
Jesus also said when the Comforter comes, “ye shall ask in my name: and I say not unto you, that I will pray the Father for you: for the Father himself loveth you” (John 16:26, 27). In other words, he promised we would have direct and constant access to the Divine. Indeed, the “dual and impersonal pastor” (Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 322) of Christian Science, the Bible and Science and Health, uniquely confirms our unbroken—and eternal—connection to truth.
When we see Christianity and Christian Science as representing two of God’s major promises kept—the Messiah and the Comforter—we can accept them without doubt. Their value is sealed in our hearts. Increasingly, they were sealed in mine.
5. Doubt isn’t natural. Faith and understanding are.
Mrs. Eddy keynotes a chapter in Science and Health called “Animal Magnetism Unmasked” with a quote from Jesus: “For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts … these are the things which defile a man” (Matthew 15:19, 20). In the original Greek, “thoughts” includes the meaning of debate, and is sometimes translated as “dispute” or “doubting” (Strong’s Exhaustive Concordance). It also means “questioning, about what is true” (Thayer’s Greek Lexicon). I started to see that doubt-filled thoughts whisper (sometimes in what seems to be our own voice), “I’m not strong or certain enough.” Or, “Others have more faith than I do.” Or, “Maybe someday I’ll believe more.”
I’ve come to realize that these are simply suggestions from what Paul calls the “carnal mind” (Romans 8:7), or as Mrs. Eddy scientifically defines it, “mortal mind” (Science and Health, p. 311). And here’s the freeing thing: Those thoughts aren’t ours. Nor do they have substance or reality. Mrs. Eddy identifies them as animal magnetism, “… the false belief that mind is in matter, and is both evil and good; that evil is as real as good and more powerful. This belief has not one quality of Truth” (Science and Health, p. 103). I’ve realized I cannot be fooled into a never-ending internal dialogue misrepresenting what is actually true—a dialogue that would, as Jesus said, “defile” me.
Instead, as a spiritual child of God, it is natural for me to be attracted to—and accepting of—truth.
After digesting these lessons, I’m continuing a journey toward what I see as Mary Magdalene’s kind of faith. As I go, I’m listening for the Christly love that envelops in grace any inkling of Thomas-like doubts. I’m staying humble and working harder at watching and praying. I’m remembering that God keeps His promises—and is therefore worth trusting. And I’m knowing that I, and all of us, naturally possess the clarity and certainty that enable us to see Christian Science in the full light of its reliable, demonstrable truth.
