Some years ago, a serious growth developed on my body. At one point it became aggravated, and the need for healing was very evident. At the same time I had a previously scheduled week-long business trip to Africa, to a country I had never before visited. Because I knew no one in the country, I felt I had a perfect opportunity, after each day’s work was completed, to devote uninterrupted time to prayer.
The first evening, as I sat in my dimly lit hotel room far from the comforts of home, I had an overwhelming sense of hopelessness and wondered whether I could rise to the spiritual heights the circumstance demanded. Before I could even begin to pray about the specific problem, I had to gain the confidence that my prayers would be clear and sufficient.
The picture changed when, over the next several hours, my thought settled and I remembered four insights that had not crossed my mind in some years. This set my course for a complete healing within a very short time.
As I looked around my hotel room, I recalled a few lines Mary Baker Eddy quotes from a poem by Edward Young in her Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896:
“The chamber where the good man meets his fate
Is privileged beyond the walks of common life,
Quite on the verge of heaven.”
(p. 202)
This helped me realize that this modest room in a far-off place was really a sanctuary, filled with the light of Christ.
The second insight was a quote I had once memorized from an article in the Journal: “… the sunlight of Truth reaches not merely the peaks of inspired thought but the deepest and darkest valleys of human need” (Robert Peel, “The dimension of depth,” March 1974). I realized that this light of Christ, Truth, was penetrating the very darkness with which I seemed, momentarily, to be covered.
The third thing I remembered was a conversation between two youngsters recounted in another issue of the Journal. One of the youngsters, skeptical that God was ever present, asked his friend: “If you were all by yourself on a desert island, with nobody else there, would God be there?” His friend’s ingenious answer: “Oh, yes.… Because I’d be there, wouldn’t I?” (L. Ivimy Gwalter, “Do you know who you are?” January 1974). And so, I thought, in this distant place where I knew no one and was a complete stranger, God was still right with me, an imminent and intimate presence.
The final thing I remembered was a statement by Mrs. Eddy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “The inaudible voice of Truth is, to the human mind, ‘as when a lion roareth.’ It is heard in the desert and in dark places of fear” (p. 559). The quote reminded me that in the very desert of hope, inspiration, and expectation where I briefly believed I was residing, I could hear the reassuring voice of Truth speaking to human consciousness. To my human consciousness.
By the time I had finished thoroughly contemplating these angel messages, my thought was buoyed and radiant, and I was able then, in my remaining days in Africa, to take up the specific prayerful work needed for a complete healing. I went to bed that first night with such a deep sense of gratitude for the transformation that had taken place in my thought and with the confidence that, as I dropped off to sleep, God was gently enfolding me. By the next day the physical healing began, and within a short time after I returned home, all vestiges of the complaint were met. While in Africa I was able to have highly productive days researching the topic I had come to investigate.
I had new appreciation for Mrs. Eddy’s assurance, “Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven; stranger, thou art the guest of God” (Science and Health, p. 254).
George Moffett
Edina, Minnesota, US
