I was introduced to Christian Science as a teenager and for three years attended a Sunday School, where I was encouraged to study the weekly Bible Lessons from the Christian Science Quarterly. Learning about God’s nature as loving and good laid a solid foundation for my life.
Later as a mother of two children, and in the full-time practice of Christian Science, I witnessed many healings, including of flu, chicken pox, measles, skin rashes, sinus infection, and broken bones. These healings gave me unshakable confidence that Christian Science heals, so it was natural for me to call a Christian Science practitioner for treatment when I began experiencing pain in one of my shoulders and arms. My mother had suffered from similar symptoms, and it occurred to me this might be believed to be a hereditary condition.
After the call with the practitioner, I felt inspired to vehemently refute the evidence of pain, mentally throwing off as unreal the testimony of the material senses just as unhesitatingly as the Apostle Paul threw the viper that had bitten him into a fire. That day I was freed from the pain.
But the pain recurred a decade later, the difference this time being that my arm became immobile. Christian Science explains that pain originates in the erroneous belief of life in matter, and I saw the need to finally break the mesmeric influence of this belief. I decided to spend significant time each day studying the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, until I had read the book in its entirety. I was convinced the ideas presented would spiritualize my thought and enable me to feel Love’s presence.
The healings related in the last chapter of the book, “Fruitage,” attest to the efficacy of Christian Science, as do the countless testimonies given at Wednesday testimony meetings in Christian Science churches around the world and those that have been published in the Christian Science periodicals for well over a century.
As I began reading the first chapter, titled “Prayer,” it seemed to me that prayer comes down to one question: Do you love God with all your heart and soul and mind? Mary Baker Eddy writes: “This command includes much, even the surrender of all merely material sensation, affection, and worship. This is the El Dorado of Christianity” (p. 9). I asked myself, How am I to love God with all my heart? This appeared to be no insignificant task.
In the coming weeks, as I continued reading, I was to learn that to love God wholeheartedly is to let in the light of Truth and Love, and that the darkness of the material senses can’t resist this spiritual light. All sorrow, as well as fear, which is the foundation of sickness, disappears in the consciousness of Love. Understanding the power of divine Love, the Apostle John wrote, “There is no fear in love; but perfect love casteth out fear” (I John 4:18).
As I continued reading the textbook, my sense of perfect Love expanded. I saw with greater clarity that God isn’t just our Father, but our loving, nurturing Mother; that God’s love is like the everlasting love a mother has for a child, and it includes the qualities of constancy and purity. And I began to feel this perfect Love destroying the fear of physical disability.
I was gleaning the mental nature of disease—that “inflammation is fear, an excited state of mortals which is not normal” (Science and Health, pp. 414–415)—and that in the omnipresence of perfect Love there can be no inflammation. In this allness there is no material sense, no personal sense or “I” which can be inflamed, hurt, or injured. The angels of God’s presence were each day revealing a sweet sense of His love to me and shutting out every argument of the material senses.
Dwelling in divine Love, we can see only God’s perfect creation and unchanging harmony. This creation is governed by God’s laws, by the spiritual laws of good. The so-called material laws of heredity are not God’s laws, and they have no power to act or to be transmitted. Why? Because as the reflection of God, man reflects the wholeness of God in the expression of perfect health. He lacks nothing good.
Three quarters of my way through Science and Health, I felt a deep sense of peace. I was no longer afraid or mesmerized by the symptoms, and after a few days my arm resumed its normal function. This occurred two decades ago, and I have not had any recurrence of the pain or disability. As Mrs. Eddy writes: “The power of Christian Science and divine Love is omnipotent. It is indeed adequate to unclasp the hold and to destroy disease, sin, and death” (Science and Health, p. 412).
Beyond the welcome restoration of a functioning arm, the true healing for me was witnessing the power of the Comforter, Christian Science, through which we discover our inseparable relationship to God, perfect Love, in whom all being is intact.
Suzanne Desomer Ruffin
Santa Rosa, California, US
