Significant weight loss and other healings

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy writes: “Maintain the facts of Christian Science,—that Spirit is God, and therefore cannot be sick; that what is termed matter cannot be sick; that all causation is Mind, acting through spiritual law. Then hold your ground with the unshaken understanding of Truth and Love, and you will win” (p. 417). 

A few years ago, I learned how to “hold my ground” and experienced the victory that doing so brings. I was, once again, struggling with a lifelong battle against being overweight. In a somewhat whiny tone I asked God why He hadn’t helped me in all this time to overcome the weight problem. I had dieted many times and had lost and regained the weight over and over, and frankly, I was frustrated and putting the blame on God. My weight was now the highest it had ever been. But once again I asked God to show me the truth that makes free, and this is what I heard: “I will praise thee; for I am fearfully and wonderfully made: marvellous are thy works; and that my soul knoweth right well” (Psalms 139:14). 

That got my attention! Could I really accept that God didn’t ever see me as overweight and discouraged? Could it actually be that this verse was a reminder to consider what God was telling me about how He sees me? Yes! I saw clearly that God was telling me He had made me to praise Him and that I was awesomely and spiritually made. 

I was overjoyed and intuitively knew this was the truth I had been looking for. I wholeheartedly accepted this as true about myself right then and there. I realized that this truth was the spiritual counter fact to what the senses were telling me about myself. 

From that point on, I hung on to this message like a lifeline from heaven. Whenever the suggestion of being overweight would come, I would protest, “No! I will praise You, heavenly Father, for I am awesomely and wonderfully made; marvelous are Your works, and that is what I can know about myself right now.” This took persistence because there was no change. Days, then weeks, then months went by with no change. But I knew what I had heard was true, and I wasn’t letting go of this truth. 

Each day I quietly took a few moments to become conscious of the spiritual perfection that God was showing me I already possessed. I also prayed, “Open thou mine eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of thy law” (Psalms 119:18) and, “Let Thy work appear unto Thy servant, and let all Thy works praise Thee” (see Psalms 90:16, 145:10). Many times I would feel so uplifted by this inspiration I actually felt lighter and would sing a song of praise and gratitude to God for revealing the truth to me. I no longer felt I needed to be filled up with excess food, because I was feeling so fulfilled with inspiration, and I was more quickly satisfied when I ate. 

Still no outward change was evident, but I just held on to what God had shown me. I held my ground. Each day, sometimes several times a day, for about 18 months, I embraced this truth with great joy and expectation. I never thought about the weight problem again, only the truth. Then one day I noticed my clothes were loose, and over the course of the next few months, my weight just began to normalize until I was four sizes smaller. There had been no willpower, no diet, no exercise, only loving, and really clinging to, the truth of my being as God’s wonderful, perfect child. I literally felt as though I was made new. I would like to say I felt twenty years younger, but truly for the first time in my life, I felt ageless! It was the most wonderful feeling to be free of the supposed constraints of a heavy body. 

In reflecting on this, I thought about the Bible story of a lame man who waited daily at the gate of the temple asking alms from those who entered in. When Peter and John healed him in the name of Jesus Christ, he rose up and went with them into the temple, “walking, and leaping, and praising God” (Acts 3:8). I came to think that this man’s walking and leaping were his way of praising God. And now this was me! My healing felt like a precious part of my praise of God, and I began to walk each day, not to try to become fit, but because I felt fit, and expressing this was an act of praise. 

Of course, I am deeply grateful for the weight loss, but even more for learning the value and the strengthening that come from clinging steadfastly to God and the healing truth He gives. In the past when I didn’t see any immediate results from my prayers, I would assume they weren’t working and move on, looking for what I thought might be a different, better, or newer truth. Now I know better, and I am not so quick to be talked into abandoning a healing message that God is giving me. Now when I turn to God for help, no matter how simple or well known the healing message is, I stay with it, and ponder it, and ask God to unfold more of its meaning until more light comes. And I would earnestly urge anyone who is struggling with a stubborn problem to just be as faithful and persistent as can be with messages of Truth that come, and then see the results of that. 

To top it off, two other conditions were healed around the time of the weight healing. I had been suffering from atrial fibrillation, a heart condition, which had been medically diagnosed owing to a request by a relative. For about four years I experienced a rapid heartbeat a few times a week. I prayed regularly, “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me” (Psalms 51:10). The healing of the heart occurred when I went for my first walk at the time of the weight turnaround. I hadn’t gone too far when the rapid heartbeat began, and I felt dizzy and lightheaded. I stopped and turned in prayer to God, and part of a hymn came clearly to thought:

I mentally put all my weight on God and leaned on the “sustaining infinite” (Science and Health, p. vii). The racing heartbeat stopped, and I never experienced it again. I now walk several miles most days and have done so for the past three years. 

Also, one of my feet and ankles had been badly swollen and inflamed for a year or so, and I could barely put any weight on it. I’m not sure exactly when the foot and ankle were healed, but it was sometime when I was holding to being wonderfully made—leaning on Spirit, not matter. 

I know that each of these healings is the result of knowing how perfectly God makes us all, including me. These healings really taught me that heeding our Leader’s counsel was the way to go: “hold your ground with the unshaken understanding of Truth and Love, and you will win.” I did win, and I am so grateful! 

Karen Neff
Mystic, Connecticut, US