Testimonies of Healing
Although I have many times been conscious of lack of response to the loving invitation given to all Christian Scientists to bear testimony to the healing and countless other benefits that the teaching and study of Christian Science enables us to experience for ourselves when faithfully followed and applied, it has not been so much from a want of gratitude, but rather through yielding to the suggestion that it would be better to wait till some important demonstration had been made. I am beginning to realize, however, that no one proof of the healing power of Truth is more important than another; and so I feel encouraged at least to try to enumerate some of the many blessings of which I have become conscious during the last nine years.
TRUSTING that my testimony will be of benefit to others, I feel that I should give it in gratitude for what Christian Science has done for me and my family. I have always done work which from its nature necessitates my standing almost constantly, but I was fairly healthy until about three and a half years ago, when my health began to fail.
My attention was first directed to Christian Science when a practitioner was called to see a friend in our village. All my life I had been very nervous, the so-called laws of heredity having been accepted by me, and for the past seventeen years, or since the birth of my youngest child, I had never been well, though I was treated by a number of physicians.
In September, 1910, I submitted twice to a most serious operation on the head, but after a while the swellings appeared again over the right eye, and an incision had to be made on the skull a third time; but even then the trouble was not removed. I went through great suffering at that time, and I was absolutely unable to do physical work, while my extreme nervousness was very trying for my family.
For a number of years I suffered from a complication of diseases. After taking treatments from different doctors and receiving no relief, they advised my husband to take me West to see if that would benefit me.
In August, 1908, I suffered from a paralytic attack, my left side being rendered useless. For a year and a half I was unable to do any kind of work, but simply waited for what I believed to be the end.
It is now twelve years since I turned to Christian Science for help, and that was after I had tried many material means and had failed to find a cure for a chronic bowel disorder. I knew nothing of Christian Science at that time, but was attracted by the healing of a friend, when I saw the change from confirmed invalidism to a perfect state of health, the friend manifesting great happiness and activity.
When I was unable, physically and mentally, to meet the duties of my life, and when I had given up in despair the hope of ever being well, Christian Science was brought to my notice. I had known nothing of Science, and fearing that it was but one of the various cults which had come to my knowledge and none of which I could accept, I determined first to learn something of its teachings and then if possible to try it.
We live at a village where there are but five other students of Christian Science, and although I had read Science and Health for nearly three years, I refused until recently to call myself a Scientist, as I had failed to demonstrate the power of Truth to heal disease. My husband was laboring under the sense of asthma, having been a victim for over twenty years, and it often seemed that he was on the verge of passing on.
About twelve years ago I had an attack of rheumatism, which gradually grew so severe that I was unable to attend to my work. To this was added a growing weakness of the eyes, making it impossible for me to read or write without glasses, and when the weather was bad a supposedly dangerous inflammation would set in.