Testimonies of Healing
While visiting a friend many years ago, I picked up the textbook, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy, and read in the Glossary the definition of God ( p. 587 ): "The great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting, all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence.
I have the deepest gratitude for Mrs. Eddy, who gave us Christian Science and established the Christian Science periodicals, with the testimonies of healing, which have given me hope and inspiration many times through the years when things seemed dark.
During many years it has been my happy privilege to enjoy and to be benefited by the testimonies of healing that have been given in Christian Science churches and also by the testimonies that appear in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy and in the Christian Science periodicals. In deep gratitude, I wish to share some of the fruitage from my study and application of Christian Science.
With deep and humble gratitude for what Christian Science has done for me and for all humanity, I submit this testimony. As the result of a spinal injury caused by a fall on an icy, cobblestone street, I suffered almost continuous pain for six years.
On page 410 of Science and Health, our revered Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, writes: "Every trial of our faith in God makes us stronger. The more difficult seems the material condition to be overcome by Spirit, the stronger should be our faith and the purer our love.
" Miserable comforters are ye all" ( Job 16:2 ). This statement by Job to his well-meaning friends who sought to help him was read to me at the time of the loss of a loved one.
I first heard of Christian Science as a child. My mother was healed of tuberculosis of the bone after her case had been pronounced hopeless by medical physicians.
The time has come when I can no longer delay expressing my gratitude to God through the Christian Science periodicals for a healing which occurred nearly thirty years ago. When our baby son was about nine days old, a little red spot appeared on his nose.
While I was a student at college, I learned the value of daily study of the Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly . During a Christmas vacation I was tobogganing with friends, and we hit an obstacle which caused a bad spill.
Whenever I hear the account of the healing of the lame man "at the gate of the temple which is called Beautiful," as recorded in the Bible ( Acts 3:1-8 ), I am reminded of a healing I had of a ruptured thigh muscle, sustained during a football match some years before World War II. Long periods of rest from training brought some improvement, but the weakness soon reappeared when sport was resumed.