I was a senior in college when I was informed of a measles outbreak on campus. Upon hearing this news, I tried to pray as I had learned in Christian Science, but I struggled with fear. I felt as though I were breathing in an impure atmosphere and couldn’t escape it.
Within a few days, I was showing symptoms of measles and was admitted to a health-care facility on campus, where I remained in isolation in accordance with local laws. As a lifelong Christian Scientist, having found the practice of Christian Science to be wholly effective, I contacted a Christian Science practitioner for metaphysical treatment.
After a short time, complications developed, including loss of the use of my arms and legs. However, at one point, I remembered a statement from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy that I don’t recall ever specifically committing to memory: “The illusion of material sense, not divine law, has bound you, entangled your free limbs, crippled your capacities, enfeebled your body, and defaced the tablet of your being” (p. 227). Suddenly I felt very calm and unafraid.
I had learned that I was made in God’s image and likeness, as stated in Genesis 1, and am therefore spiritual and perfect. The man of God’s creating can never become injured, contaminated, or diseased. This is the true, spiritual man, God’s expression. The material sense of man as subject to disease and death is false—that which seems to be but is not.
So even though I was experiencing symptoms, I knew I didn’t have to accept what the physical senses were telling me. With this realization, I became more alert. I soon gained confidence in the spiritual truth that the entire picture of disease was an illusion, false in every way, and had nothing to do with me. With the practitioner’s unwavering support, I accepted only what spiritual sense was telling me and affirmed that as an immortal idea of God, I was pure, uncontaminated, and entirely free. Within a short time, I had use of my limbs again.
Another passage in Science and Health was very helpful: “If you decide that climate or atmosphere is unhealthy, it will be so to you. Your decisions will master you, whichever direction they take.
“Reverse the case. Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously. When the condition is present which you say induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident, then perform your office as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears” (p. 392).
I continued to stand porter and watch my thoughts, reversing all the suggestions material sense presented to me. I knew the spiritual fact was that neither I nor anyone else had ever breathed in an unhealthy atmosphere or could ever be at risk of catching a disease. Identifying myself as wholly spiritual, as God created me, I was completely free from every symptom of the measles in about a week.
This healing greatly increased my trust in God’s complete care for all of us. I am deeply grateful for all the many healings I have had through prayer in Christian Science.
Stephanie Summerlin
Kirkwood, Missouri, US
