“The best sermon ever preached is Truth practised and demonstrated by the destruction of sin, sickness, and death,” writes Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 201). Every healing exemplifies this.
One day a dark spot appeared on my abdomen, and it soon spread into a number of open sores. I stayed quietly confident in what I had learned from Christian Science about my oneness with God and about God’s ability to heal. As the Bible says, “For thus saith the Lord God, the Holy One of Israel; In returning and rest shall ye be saved; in quietness and in confidence shall be your strength” (Isaiah 30:15).
I could not lie flat on the bed at night to sleep, but was able to find rest propped up with pillows all around me. No time was lost from my office or any other duties. The theme of treatment for myself each day and night was Christ Jesus’ words, “The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light” (Matthew 6:22). This meant to me that if I was one with God, then I was absolutely, solely spiritual—not mixed up with matter or anything that wasn’t good.
I kept the area on my abdomen clean and bandaged it to protect my clothing. I wanted to keep my eye only on that spiritual light of Truth.
Added to this theme of my daily prayers was this line from Mrs. Eddy’s hymn “Satisfied” in the Christian Science Hymnal: “There Life is light, and wisdom might, / And God is All” (No. 160). I realized that since Life is light, and my whole being is full of light, then I express Life, God, and nothing else.
Joy and happiness filled my consciousness as I prayed this way every day for about a month. I was almost oblivious to any problem. Then one morning when removing the bandage for my shower, I saw the sores were completely healed. Even though I had been expecting healing, I was in awe.
The next day the suggestion came, “It feels like you’ve been sick for a long time.” And I actually felt sick—for the first time. Immediately I recognized that as an aggressive mental suggestion from the carnal mind, and I treated it with “sudden dismissal,” as instructed in Science and Health (see p. 218). That was the end of the feeling of sickness.
I am so grateful for the Christian Science textbook, because it really is the key to the Scriptures. This healing helped me realize how much I use the Bible in my practice of Christian Science. But it was Science and Health, from the time I first read it many years ago, that unlocked for me the healing treasures of the Bible, and it continues to do so.
Viola Twist-Harb
Sun City West, Arizona, US
