I’ve had many healings since beginning my study of Christian Science at age thirteen, when I set out on the journey to understand God as an active and powerful presence that is as close as my thought. I’d like to share a few of these healings here.
Throughout my teenage years, what I was learning about man as God’s pure reflection guided my spiritual growth and helped me make sound moral choices. When pressured by boyfriends to get more involved physically than seemed right, I would reread the chapter titled “Marriage” in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, which gave me a spiritual perspective on male and female relationships. Knowing that I was taking a stand based on Principle—a synonym for God—gave me the confidence to say a firm but loving no when necessary.
When I was living away from home for the first time since college, I was playing a friendly game of soccer with coworkers and was kicked in the ankle by a guy wearing a heavy boot. The pain was intense, and over the next week I could not put on a shoe completely but hobbled around with the shoe half off. I was praying to understand myself as spiritual rather than as a material being, because I was learning through my study of Christian Science that, as Science and Health states, “Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique” (p. 475). Still, I was not making progress in healing the ankle.
