Over the span of about twenty years starting in young adulthood, every few years I would experience the symptoms of a mild heart attack. Each time this happened, I would declare the truth of my being—ideas that I had learned through studying Christian Science: that I am not material but spiritual, and therefore not subject to material conditions; that God loves me and is all-powerful and always present, keeping me safe in His kingdom; that my life is pure, created and governed by God, and cannot be defective or contaminated; that any claim of mortal discord has to be an illusion, because “all things were made by him [the Word of God]; and without him was not any thing made that was made” (John 1:3); that I cannot be separated from God, who is Life itself and fills all space; that God is the only Mind, and therefore I cannot be made to believe in something that God does not know; that there is no mortal law of heredity, time, or limitation on God’s idea, since, as Mary Baker Eddy writes, “God’s law is in three words, ‘I am All;’ and this perfect law is ever present to rebuke any claim of another law” (No and Yes, p. 30).
Turning to these truths, I found I was rarely afraid during these episodes. I was confident that God was right there and that I could and would see through the illusion. Each time, the symptoms would disappear within a few hours, and I would return to my usual active lifestyle.
One day, on a Thursday, I again felt the symptoms and prayed. But this time they did not abate and were more severe than I had ever experienced before. I became afraid, and on Friday I called a Christian Science practitioner to pray with me. He asked me to pray with the following idea that Mrs. Eddy gave us in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “There is but one creator and one creation” (p. 502). This meant to me that Spirit, God, is the only creator, and that all of creation, including me, must be spiritual and only good. There is no “material me” that has to come into line with the spiritual. There is not a spiritual version of us that is perfect and also a material, imperfect version in some kind of parallel universe that needs healing. There is only one true version of us, the spiritual and perfect one, and the belief in a material version must be dropped from consciousness. We can do this by becoming aware of Love’s presence and letting it fill our consciousness.
