"I just caught a glimpse of infinite possibilities. ..."
This is how my friend described an early encounter with the ideas in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. That glimpse was enough to encourage her to start studying Christian Science and to find herself quickly healed of intense nervousness and depression, and completely free of an allergic reaction to detergent.
Since then, spiritual healing through prayer has been her healing method of choice, a method that has proven itself time and time again, and to which she credits her continuing health. My friend's early glimpse of the limitless power of divine Spirit to meet one's needs for health and healing has deepened into firm conviction.
This same kind of firm conviction of God's healing power is evident among people of many different faiths. Just the other day, I was leafing through some newspaper clippings when I came across an obituary published in The Times of London in February 2002. It told of Christopher Woodard, a prominent London doctor who "eventually devoted himself to faith healing."
When Woodard's son was suffering from meningitis and had been given half an hour to live, Woodard and his fellow Anglican Church members prayed. His son recovered. Said Woodard: "My belief was always strong, but now it is boundless." Woodard spent many years helping his patients through prayer and was heard to maintain in his public lectures, "I have the complete conviction that there is no such thing as an incurable disease." He clearly had a sense of infinite possibilities for those looking to God for health and healing.
This awareness of the divine power to heal isn't new. People of faith in all ages have found themselves able to heal spiritually by relying on God's goodness and power. Mary Baker Eddy explained this phenomenon in Science and Health, where she wrote: "When man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understandsall things, man knows that with God all things are possible." Science and Health, p. 180. The gospel accounts of the life of Jesus furnish supreme evidence of the truth of that statement.
The healing power of divine Spirit is limitless.
Imagine how the needy people of Jesus' day must have felt when they saw him restore a withered hand to wholeness; heal dementia; rout fevers, deafness, dumbness. epilepsy; banish long-term crippling conditions; restore sight to the blind; even raise the dead. To witness such marvels must have awakened in people a quickened sense of the limitless power of God to heal, a glimpse of infinite possibilities. And then, to hear Jesus say, "He that believeth on me, the works that I do shall he do also; and greater works than these shall he do." John 14:12. They, too, could do the same healing works. Those who caught this vision did go out and heal—up to seventy of them on one particular mission. See Luke 10:1–20 .
What had Jesus specifically taught those disciples, in order to enable them to draw on divine power in their healing work and to demonstrate to some extent that "with God all things are possible"? Records of his specific teaching on how to heal are scant, but one thing that stands out is Jesus' complete subordination of any sense of personal power to the recognition that all power belongs to God. He said, "I can of mine own self do nothing" John 5:30. and "Why callest thou me good? there is none good but one, that is, God." Mark 10:18.
Along with this total submission to God, he never lost sight of his inseparability from his divine Father nor of this spiritual fact of creation: that not only he, as God's Son, but all are created in the divine image. This is why he could say, "Be ye therefore perfect,even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect." Matt. 5:48. He knew it was natural for God's children to have the same nature as their Creator, the health of their Creator. It was natural to reflect God in thought, in quality, and in ability—and therefore, to be able to heal.
There is no condition that cannot yield to the light and truth of Love.
Here's how Mary Baker Eddy explained the basis of the healing system that Jesus practiced: "The 'man of sorrows' bestunderstood the nothingness of material life and intelligence and the mighty actuality of all-inclusive God, good. These were the two cardinal points of Mind-healing, or Christian Science, which armed him with Love." Science and Health, p. 52.
This passage always reminds me of a meeting I had with my husband's former Sunday School teacher when I was just becoming interested in Christian Science. She was quite an elderly lady, radiant, joyous, and full of gratitude for this Science. When I questioned her about it, all she would say was that "Christian Science brings out the allness of God."
Over the years, what this dear lady meant has become clearer to me and has taken on increasing significance in my life. I've learned that Spirit, God, is the only Life, substance, and Mind in my life and everyone's life. All individuality and identity are safe and established, not in material history or characteristics, but in infinite Love, the Love that created everyone. As this spiritual basis for identity becomes clearer to the person seeking health or healing, inspired insights into one's spiritual nature will restore both body and mind. This perspective reveals present harmony, present safety, present wholeness and health, and melts away apparent difficulties, or dis-ease. God is always Love—always everywhere, always able to communicate to each heart, to reveal one's substance and status as His/Her spiritual reflection. There is no condition that cannot yield to the light and truth of this revelation. Speaking out of my own life experience, I can say that the possibilities for healing are infinite.
Having lost three children through miscarriages, I was desperate to find healing. That's when I began to read Science and Health, seeking answers. The idea of God as All, and of each one of us as God's image, gave me that all-important glimpse of infinite possibilities. I realized that if Spirit fills infinity and is always present, then there was really nowhere for anyone to get lost. Everyone is embraced in this infinite Spirit. No one is lost or unknown to God. I began to grasp the truth of this statement in Science and Health: "The one Spirit includes all identities." Ibid., p. 333. The identity of those children was forever distinct and known to their Creator. Seeing this took away my grief. I felt this was what I needed to know—that this understanding was my healing. And it was. I never had another miscarriage—but I do have three lovely sons!
And the beauty is, I gained much more than I expected, because that dawning glimpse of infinite possibilities is developing into a full glow, a constantly deepening conviction that "with God all things are possible."
With God there are no outsiders. Christian Science is for anyone and everyone seeking healing, whatever one's choice of religion or system of spirituality. Mary Baker Eddy wrote: "The power of Christian Science and divine Love is omnipotent." Ibid., p. 412. All of us are free to take our journey with Science and Health and test the truth of this statement. All of us have a right to discover infinite possibilities for health and healing for ourselves and for everyone.
