Christ Jesus said, “Fear not, little flock; for it is your Father’s good pleasure to give you the kingdom” (Luke 12:32). Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Take heart, dear sufferer, for this reality of being will surely appear sometime and in some way. There will be no more pain, and all tears will be wiped away” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 573). I learned the truth of these statements and that the power of the Christ is right here to heal us when we turn to God with receptive hearts.
There was a time when I was very afraid of chronic pain that seemed to be spreading. I called a Christian Science practitioner to help me pray about this fear and to give Christian Science treatment. She spoke with me about turning away from thinking of my life as limited to a material body and turning toward the true spiritual understanding of God as my Life. She shared this analogy with me: “It’s as if you’ve taken a wrong turn down a street lined with old stores filled with dirty, unwanted clothes and goods. But you can turn around and go the right way, to a street lined with bright stores with shining windows filled with beautiful things people want.”
Mrs. Eddy wrote in Science and Health, “Do you not hear from all mankind of the imperfect model? The world is holding it before your gaze continually. The result is that you are liable to follow those lower patterns, limit your life-work, and adopt into your experience the angular outline and deformity of matter models.
“To remedy this, we must first turn our gaze in the right direction, and then walk that way. We must form perfect models in thought and look at them continually, or we shall never carve them out in grand and noble lives” (p. 248).
I worked to replace in my thought the belief that life is in and of matter with the understanding that God is my Life. It became clearer that we weren’t trying to project a treatment at a physical condition. It was the false concept of life that seemed to bring sickness. Knowing the reality—that I am wholly spiritual and that matter cannot be sick—I could rise above the incorrect view and destroy the aggressive mental suggestion of sickness.
I wanted to “spiritualize my thought”—to keep my thinking more in line with Spirit than with matter. I wasn’t sure how to do this. But when I read in the Bible how Paul said to bring “into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ” (II Corinthians 10:5), I knew I could do that, and I worked to do it throughout the day. I kept my Bible open to Psalms 23 or Psalms 91, which were both bottomless wells of comfort. I devoured testimonies in the periodicals and in the book We Knew Mary Baker Eddy. These were a constant source of encouragement and healing ideas.
One day the practitioner told me of a healing she’d had of a serious illness. The healing had come instantly, once she took a firm mental stand against the thoughts of sickness and mortality and got rid of them. When I hung up the phone, I realized one of the pains I had been experiencing for a long time was gone. You can imagine my joy!
I knew that I could be healed through Christian Science and was never tempted to get a medical diagnosis or seek other treatments. Christian Science had been proven to me to be the most effective means of healing and, I felt, the only solution to my problem. I continued my study and prayer with the conviction that if I allowed divine Truth to transform my thinking, I would be physically transformed as well.
One day a thought came to me that was so powerful it filled my consciousness. It left no room for any thought not from God. It was the “still small voice” (I Kings 19:12) whispered to me, but it felt as loud as a church bell in a tower, and I was standing in the tower. It simply said, “Everything will be all right.” It rang through my whole being. It was the omnipotence of God in action, dispelling anything that would try to oppose that power.
I worked to keep my thought filled with that good. I had just met a wonderful man, and we seemed to be made for each other. But when he asked me to marry him, I was afraid to say yes until this problem had been healed completely.
In one of the healings I had read, the author was healed of a physical problem when he was led to continue with scheduled events, even when it seemed physically impossible. I decided that I would get married and expect God to bring this right idea to fruition.
Many truths in Science and Health gave me courage in the face of the frightening symptoms and the fear that I was going to die and cause my family grief. Two of these were: “Rise in the conscious strength of the spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind, alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit” (pp. 390–391), and “Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man” (p. 393).
My need wasn’t for a manlike god to grant me a reprieve from suffering, but for me to realize my present perfection as God’s spiritual idea, and “rise” in this “strength.”
I leaned on these spiritual truths as I seemed to grow weaker toward the time of the wedding and I found it difficult to stand or eat. I read this statement in Psalms: “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord” (118:17). I knew I could live and prove this truth of the Bible.
On the night before the wedding, my dad saw that I was struggling and sat very quietly and calmly with his arm around me, praying. I don’t remember thinking anything—just a complete surrender to God.
The next morning when I woke up for the wedding, I was healed. My joy and gratitude were unbounded as I walked down the aisle. I was “leaping and praising God” in my thought. At one point during the honeymoon, the pains seemed to return, but the most remarkable thing was that I felt no fear. The pains no longer had any reality to me. I didn’t have to argue them away. I simply dismissed them, and that was the end of the pain.
I have been married 24 years. The condition has not returned. I had not told my husband about the condition because I didn’t want him to be fearful. However, before we were married, I did tell him I would rely on Christian Science treatment for healing, and he said he would respect that. A year or so later, I told him about this healing. He was not surprised because he had witnessed other healings I’d had, including of a broken toe and flu symptoms. This healing has proven to me without a doubt that Christian Science is the truth, is fully demonstrable, and is superior to all material methods of healing.
I am so grateful to all the people who share their healings in the periodicals, to my parents for being such dedicated Christian Scientists, and most of all for that sweet sense of God’s tender, loving care for each of us as His beloved children.
Alice Runzi
Bellflower, Missouri, US
