Freed from pain through persistent prayer

One morning in spring 2022, during my time serving as First Reader of my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, I woke up to find it difficult to walk. I was unable to move one leg at all without intense pain. My family patiently helped me get where I needed to be, but I had to stay close to my study room and just pray. 

I needed to get ready to conduct the Sunday service two days later, and when a family member suggested that I should get a substitute, I said that God had given me a job to do, and with that job came the ability to do it. As it says in the Bible, “For he performeth the thing that is appointed for me” (Job 23:14).

There was progress as I worked closely with a Christian Science practitioner. I held to the truth that Life is God, good, and not evil; that I am not material but rather a complete and spiritual expression of Soul, God; and that there is no sin, no error, in God’s creation. I had to know that sin, sickness, and death never came from God, so I could not be made to bow down to them or give them power. 

Though movement was difficult for a few weeks, I persistently affirmed my true identity, declaring that I could not be mesmerized into believing I was a sick mortal. Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “Mesmerism is mortal, material illusion. Animal magnetism is the voluntary or involuntary action of error in all its forms; it is the human antipode of divine Science” (p. 484). I knew I could not be tricked into believing the illusion of life in matter, or that there was a voluntary (something that I was choosing to believe in) or involuntary (something that was being imposed on me) action of error affecting me that I needed to somehow fix. 

I realized that there is only one power, one Mind, so I actually did not need to change anything, because I was never more nor less than what God had made. I knew this problem couldn’t be true because it was not of God, who is only good and the only power. 

I really felt that the work of serving God as a Reader, and also helping those who had been calling on me for metaphysical support, was helping me and keeping me safe as I relied on God. I knew that God had already done the work of making me in His image and likeness; I was simply reflecting Him.

I talked almost daily with the practitioner, who was incredibly helpful and supportive. I was able to prepare readings for church meetings and be at my post, standing as long as needed, every Sunday and Wednesday, thanking God and knowing it was God that was sustaining me. The church services were a refuge where I found peace and felt uplifted. When I was tempted to give up, I held firmly to the truth, armed with the conviction that, in striving to bear witness to Life, Truth, and Love, I was doing God’s work and could not fail Him. This carried me through until the mesmerism was completely broken and I was painless and free, as in reality I had always been. 

It felt as though I had awakened from a bad dream, and I was so grateful to be awake! I saw the mesmeric dream of life in matter, represented in Genesis 3 by a talking serpent suggesting there were benefits to a belief in both good and evil, for the lie that it is. God’s goodness is ever present, and this fact destroys any possibility of evil. 

What a joy to know that God is All, and that all is good! As a beloved hymn that I sang throughout this time so clearly tells us,

Sheila Alioto
Wildwood, Missouri, US