For several years I was troubled by an unhappy marriage and resentful of my husband’s inconsistent treatment of our children and me—being kind and loving one minute and mean and demeaning the next. Since I was someone who liked to please, I wrongly allowed my husband’s dominance and put-downs to rule the family. My efforts at peacemaking only resulted in this erratic behavior continuing, and it was at the expense of my health and our children’s welfare.
When I discovered painful lumps in both of my breasts, I became fearful. But I strongly believed that God could heal me.
During my daily study of Christian Science, I came across the Bible verse, “I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26). This was welcome reassurance that God, divine Truth and Love, not only could but would heal me. I also read in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, “Heal through Truth and Love; there is no other healer” (Rudimental Divine Science, p. 8).
I never told my husband of my physical condition. He would have wanted me to seek a medical diagnosis and medical treatment, as this would have been his health-care choice. But I felt right about my decision to rely on prayer for healing. Time after time I’d seen healing result from the practice of Christian Science, so I never considered any other remedy.
As I prayed over the next several months, I listened for God’s thoughts. I endeavored to understand my true being as God’s image and likeness—eternal, indestructible, reflecting only His goodness—and to see my husband in this pure light as well. I was certain that the spiritual tools I had gained from a course I’d taken in Christian Science shortly before the birth of our first child—Primary class instruction, where I gained a deeper understanding of God and our relationship to our Father-Mother—were all I needed.
During this time, I asked for metaphysical treatment from the teacher of this class, which was a strong support and kept my thought off the body and on spiritual ideas and divine reality. I was reminded that the body didn’t determine whether I was sick or well. What mattered was what was going on in thought, because our thoughts govern us. And my thoughts, in reality, reflected God, the one divine Mind, so they were fearless and at peace.
After praying on my own for a time a few months later, I received further Christian Science treatment from a friend who was a Christian Science practitioner, and I felt an increasing sense of God’s love enabling me to trust divine Love to care for my family and me. I stopped checking my body to see what was going on. In my prayers, I consistently claimed and grew in understanding of my spiritual identity as a child of God.
Prayer in Christian Science is based on the premise that life is spiritual and eternal, and that there is no life or substance in matter. Divine Mind is the only substance or Life. “The scientific statement of being” in the Christian Science textbook begins: “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 468).
My thoughts were also uplifted by the promises to us in the ninety-first Psalm, particularly the last verse: “With long life will I satisfy him, and shew him my salvation” (verse 16). The verse was familiar to me from my Sunday School days, but now it meant something to me: This disease, which seemed so real, wasn’t going to end my life; instead, I was going to see the end—the unreality—of this disease, and have a long life.
While I was talking with the Christian Science practitioner, she also brought to my attention a passage in Science and Health that woke me up: “Though error hides behind a lie and excuses guilt, error cannot forever be concealed. Truth, through her eternal laws, unveils error. . . . Even the disposition to excuse guilt or to conceal it is punished” (p. 542).
I realized that excusing error was exactly what I had been doing in my family for years and that this tendency—a result of fear of my husband’s harshness and wanting to keep peace in the family—was being uncovered to be healed through God, divine Truth and Love. God would never punish me or any of His loved children. We are not sinners in His eyes. When I began to see my husband and myself as God sees us—innocent and pure—the fear of standing up to behavior I knew was wrong, and the guilt for not having done so, began to disappear. I saw that the past wasn’t important. All that mattered was what I was doing now, and I could begin to expect to be treated respectfully and compassionately by my husband. My children also deserved respectful treatment.
Taking a stand took a lot of courage. It did not happen quickly, but I became confident that in doing what was right, I could not suffer any repercussions. As the fear subsided, I began speaking up for myself. I felt a sense of joy and peace, and the pain subsided.
Although I had at one time considered divorcing my husband, I had been studying the chapter on marriage in Science and Health and did not feel compelled to move in that direction. I stayed with my husband, loving him and appreciating the good, God-given qualities he had always had, which I was now seeing more and more. He responded by becoming more stable, kind, and caring, and our children were blessed by a loving home.
During this period of spiritual growth, I frequently pondered the words “Healed is thy hardness, His love hath dissolved it” from Hymn 278 in the Christian Science Hymnal (P. M., adapt. © CSBD). It was wonderful to see evidence of this, as God’s love dissolved not only the hardness in my husband’s character and my resentment of what I had seen as his bad side, but also the tendency I had to be hard on myself. And it ultimately dissolved the hard lumps in my body. I felt more loving toward my husband as I saw that rather than having a good and bad side, he only had one, a God-given, purely good nature. I was also more loving toward and forgiving of myself for not having stood up sooner for what was right.
Within about a year, all evidence of the lumps was gone and I felt well again. I knew I was healed.
Furthermore, I realized I had never been touched or scarred by this experience, and I could forgive my husband. Mary Baker Eddy writes in her autobiography, Retrospection and Introspection, “It is well to know, dear reader, that our material, mortal history is but the record of dreams, not of man’s real existence, and the dream has no place in the Science of being” (p. 21).
I also came to appreciate deeply these words from Isaiah: “Thy Maker is thine husband” (54:5). What a freeing thing it was to no longer feel that I was dependent on my husband, or any other person, to be complete, because God had already made me complete; and my husband, too.
I am grateful for the many lessons this experience taught me; for learning to be more patient, kind, and loving; and for having been able to take the moral stand, with God’s help, that rebuilt my relationship with my husband and enabled me to trust in his innate, constant goodness. While we continue to work out everyday challenges, as every couple does, our marriage has continued a happy one now for many years.
Name Withheld
