Several years ago, an acutely itchy and burning condition appeared all over my scalp. I’d had many healings since I found Christian Science in 1995, so I was eager to rely completely on prayer to heal this condition as well. I asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me, and I was very grateful for this support.
As I turned to God in prayer, some passages came to me from my daily study of the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. One Bible passage was from Psalm 103: “Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name. Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases; who redeemeth thy life from destruction; who crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies” (verses 1–4).
The line “all that is within me, bless his holy name” really spoke to me. I understood that I needed to fill my thoughts with the harmony and goodness of infinite divine Love, God.
I also loved the idea that God “crowneth thee with lovingkindness and tender mercies.” To me this meant that God, the only cause and creator, “crowns” (or adorns) my consciousness with love and kindness, not irritation or disease.
One passage from Science and Health that I persistently pondered was the inspired definition of substance, which includes this statement: “Truth, Life, and Love are substance. . . .” (p. 468). I had learned in Christian Science that Truth, Life, and Love are names for God gleaned from the Bible, and that God is infinite Spirit, purely good. So, I reasoned that since I’m a child of God, my true Life or substance must be spiritual, pure, and loving, never material, infected, or inflamed.
As I studied passages in Science and Health that mentioned the words inflammation or inflamed, I found the following passage especially helpful: “Matter cannot be inflamed. Inflammation is fear, an excited state of mortals which is not normal” (pp. 414–415).
I hadn’t been feeling fearful, so I asked myself how I could have a condition caused by fear. This was a turning point for me. It dawned on me that this “excited state of mortals which is not normal” was not really my true mind or consciousness, but simply a false sense of mind, as if there were a mind other than God trying to distract me from my healing work as a Christian Scientist.
My prayers from that point on were mostly to understand that the one all-harmonious Mind, God, is the only Mind, which includes nothing sore or inflamed, and that there is no real opposition to the healing practice of Christian Science. As I increasingly realized that the symptoms were not actually part of me, but simply impersonal attempts to distract me from my work, the symptoms calmed down and disappeared.
It has been six years since this healing occurred, and I’ve never had a problem with my scalp since. I’m so grateful to have found Christian Science, which heals by revealing the divine harmony that is always present.
Monica Karal
Montreal, Quebec, Canada
