One of my first powerful healings as a young adult came about when I learned how important it is to embrace a true sense of sacrament. Back then I had never particularly liked the Bible Lesson subject of “Sacrament” in the Christian Science Quarterly. It always seemed heavy and heartbreaking to me because it usually included the crucifixion of Christ Jesus, and I felt it implied martyrdom, sacrifice, and loss. But my view changed.
As a young wife and mother with two small children, I began to experience a menstrual period that went on month after month without normal breaks in between. I wasn’t in pain, but was afraid because I knew this wasn’t right. I’d had Christian Science Primary class instruction a couple of years earlier, and was endeavoring to give myself Christian Science treatment as I had learned to do it in that class. This involved affirming the allness and omnipotence of God, Spirit, and denying that Spirit’s opposite, matter, had any power to cause diseased action. I prayed to know that blood is not the vital source of life because Life is God. But the bleeding continued.
Then one Saturday, I asked my husband to watch the children so I could have some time to pray more deeply for myself. I also called my Christian Science teacher to pray for me. When I explained this situation to her, she asked me a startling question: “What is it that you think you are being ‘crucified’ over?” She didn’t try to answer this question for me or dive into any psychological probing about what was going on in my life, but agreed to pray for me and turned me to reading the Bible Lesson for that week on “Sacrament” to spiritualize my concept of sacrifice.
