Articles

One day when my girls were small, I woke with early symptoms of the flu. Those same symptoms had repeatedly led to the flu in my high school and college years.

A little girl I know was fascinated by the beautiful floodlit church in her town near Oxford, England. One night when she passed by with her father, it was in total darkness.

Last spring an apricot tree in my backyard surprised me. After five years of producing no fruit, there was a profusion of delicate pink flowers.

The alarm rang in the wee hours of the morning, well before many people would consider rising. I got up, dressed, and trudged downstairs to go outside to witness a lunar eclipse.

We know that when human laws are good and right—such as traffic laws, for example—they are designed to keep us safe when obeyed. But what about obedience to God’s law, particularly the first of the Ten Commandments? Many have proved that such obedience brings not only safety, but a sense of spiritual power and dominion.

Science often explains things that would otherwise seem inexplicable to the onlooker. For example, it may look as if there is nothing to support the weight of a plane as it lifts off.

In the silence just before a concert begins, listeners witness a moment of total focus onstage. A single note sounds.

In the church of Christ, Scientist, I attend, and in these churches around the world, a particular Bible passage is read to the congregation each week, just before the benediction that closes the Sunday service. It’s from the book of First John: “Behold, what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God: therefore the world knoweth us not, because it knew him not.

As a staff editor for The Christian Science Journal, Sentinel, and Herald, I’ve had the pleasure of reading hundreds of inspiring articles and testimonies of healing, by people who answer this very question in each piece they write. For instance, there’s the article that just came across my desk by a Brazilian woman who relates how Christian Science was introduced to her at a very troubling time of her life—and how it restored her peace and sense of home.

What follows is an edited summary of the panel discussion “Practice that truly heals,” held on Saturday, June 3, 2017, in the Extension of The Mother Church and broadcast live online. The panel was one of the events held during the weekend prior to Annual Meeting.