Human sympathy for those who are suffering has impelled some medical, charitable, and religious organizations to find ways to comfort people as they are dying—or even to help hasten death. Some have attempted to comfort people by explaining why they feel God would allow or even cause death. Some believe that prayer can bring healing to those dying, but too often the word healing means to bring comfort and hope in the expectation of life after death. Isn’t there hope to enable everyone to enjoy health here and now? The answer is a definite “Yes!”
Christian Science, the Science of Christianity, has a very powerful answer to all human suffering, and it does not involve giving in to death. Christ Jesus and his disciples healed every kind of physical problem mankind faces today—hereditary, congenital, and contagious diseases; long-standing injuries or defects; and age-related conditions—through prayer to God, Spirit, alone. Jesus never simply comforted people as they died. He restored them to life and health.
Even in the Old Testament, God gives us His assurance that His will for us is to live, not die: “Cast away from you all your transgressions, whereby ye have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will ye die, O house of Israel? For I have no pleasure in the death of him that dieth, saith the Lord God: wherefore turn yourselves, and live ye” (Ezekiel 18:31, 32).
