Attendance in the Christian Science Sunday School taught me that having even the tiniest seed of understanding of God as Spirit, and of man as His spiritual image and likeness, has the power to heal and does heal. During those years I experienced quick healings of chickenpox and menstrual cramps. My youngest brother was healed of scarlet fever.
I’m writing now to share a healing that has served as a touchstone for my efforts to rely on Christian Science healing throughout my life. Shortly after my college years, I began to experience pain in my side. I lost a noticeable amount of weight, and the pain became so sharp I couldn’t sleep at night. My understanding of the inextricable relationship between perfect God and perfect man was not deep, but I had complete faith that God would heal me.
As challenging as the symptoms were, it didn’t occur to me to seek a medical diagnosis. I visited a Christian Science practitioner, and he agreed to give me Christian Science treatment. His conviction—that God loved me dearly and that I was safe in trusting God with my life—buoyed my own conviction. The pain subsided, and I was able to eat normally again, though there was lingering discomfort. Looking back, I realize I was so focused on an impending move that I didn’t persevere in prayer to see the healing through to completion.
I had accepted a position at The Christian Science Publishing Society in Boston and was in the midst of packing when the symptoms of illness had first presented themselves. When they subsided, I was eager to send off my belongings and leave for Boston. On the way, during a visit with a sisterly church friend in another city, the symptoms returned. The pain again became difficult, and I couldn’t eat or sleep. My friend called a local Christian Science practitioner to help me.
This practitioner invited me to her home and spent the afternoon sharing spiritual truths with me. After a while, I was led to tell her how, during my college years, I had been disobedient to God—breaking some of the Ten Commandments and willfully indulging in ungodlike behavior. (I had not mentioned this to the first practitioner.) She asked me if I was now free from that behavior. I said yes, and she assured me that if I had truly repented, I no longer needed to suffer. She explained that my relation to my perfect Father-Mother God as His perfect reflection had never changed; I would never be anything but divine Love’s beloved child.
This practitioner helped me uncover negative feelings about myself that had been unintentionally passed down to me, owing to the concept of original sin that my mother had been raised with. As the practitioner was pointing this out, I suddenly realized I felt unworthy to work at The Mother Church. She reminded me that God is All, and that this fact rules out sin; that God is good only, and therefore, as God’s expression, I am good, too. As His child, I am innately pure and whole, and He gives me dominion over all mortal suggestions. Once an evil suggestion is recognized to be false, to have nothing to do with our spiritual selfhood—and has been repented of and abandoned—it disappears from consciousness; and when thought is purified in that way, the body reflects this purity.
All afternoon, while the practitioner and I were working and praying together, I was soaking up these spiritual ideas. The symptoms were still aggressive, but I knew Truth was at work expelling error.
About dinnertime, the practitioner offered to let me sleep in her guest room, and shared these instructions: “I will continue to pray for you, and your job is to say, ‘No,’ and, ‘Yes.’ When the symptoms tempt you, say, ‘No!’ Do not bow down to matter.” She then folded her arms as if she were cradling a child, which gave me the mental image of divine Spirit embracing me with perfect love. She said: “You are God’s beloved child, cradled right in His arms. Picture yourself there and say, ‘Yes!’ Will you do that?” I nodded, totally understanding there was not to be one more second of worshiping matter; I was to worship God only.
I remember saying no and yes a few times, but not for long. I fell sound asleep. The next thing I knew, the sun was shining brightly into the room. It was morning, and I was completely healed! Not the slightest suggestion of illness remained. The next moment, the practitioner was in the doorway with a glass of milk and toast. I took it without fear and gratefully ate it. We rejoiced together, and I thanked her for her prayers and for how much she had done to express her love—I had been in her home about twenty hours.
My church friend was very happy to come and take me back to her home. She told me she had thought I might pass on. We acknowledged a Christian Science healing that was undeniable. We had witnessed a complete triumph over material belief. Neither of us would ever be the same. I flew to Boston and began what turned into a productive and progressive ten-year career working for The Mother Church.
In almost fifty years, those symptoms have never presented themselves again. The healing was permanent, and other incidents of healing through Christian Science treatment followed.
Through the years, whenever I have been tempted with doubt, this healing has been a source of strength. When I remember it, a childlike trust in God shines through my thought. I am called upon to refresh my faith and deepen my spiritual understanding.
This healing and others have taught me that the mortal belief in sin does seem to separate us from God, but this seeming separation is only the false belief that we are sinners. Once we understand the spiritual truth that we are free of sin, and that we never could sin because we are God’s expression (and we have forsaken sin on this basis), then our unbroken relationship to God reveals itself as the eternal reality, untouched by false belief.
I often think about and pray with this passage in the Christian Science textbook: “The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, pp. 470–471).
Cheryl M. Mailer
Tukwila, Washington, US
