I am grateful for a wonderful healing I had many years ago while I was a junior in high school.
One morning I found myself in extreme pain and unable to move any part of my body. I received practical care from a Christian Science nurse, I had metaphysical treatment from a Christian Science practitioner, and I was praying daily myself.
I remember reading an article in which a man ran into a friend who asked him how he was doing. The man said, “I’m going through hell.” His friend replied with vigor, “That’s no place to stop. Keep going!” I realized that is just what I should do—not be discouraged, but keep on going. And that’s exactly what I did.
This thought lifted me out of my rut. I started out by listing each problem I was dealing with, and I found solutions in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, that I wrote down as well. I recently found the paper I had made these lists on, and I would like to share now how I prayed using some of these wonderful healing ideas I was finding.
Where I wrote, “I suffer from pains in my limbs when I try to use them,” I wrote next to it from Science and Health: “Have no fear that matter can ache, swell, and be inflamed as the result of a law of any kind, when it is self-evident that matter can have no pain nor inflammation. Your body would suffer no more from tension or wounds than the trunk of a tree which you gash or the electric wire which you stretch, were it not for mortal mind” (p. 393).
Another problem I faced was that I would get so discouraged, and I was tempted to give up. Then I found in Science and Health: “Wait for your reward, and ‘be not weary in well doing.’ If your endeavors are beset by fearful odds, and you receive no present reward, go not back to error, nor become a sluggard in the race.
“When the smoke of battle clears away, you will discern the good you have done, and receive according to your deserving” (p. 22).
I did just that, and I decided that like the man in the article who had to keep going, I would continue to move forward, dearly cared for by God.
I turned with vigor to the Bible, especially the twenty-third Psalm and the ninety-first Psalm, and all the truths I loved in the Bible. I held to these truths and to those I found in the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, knowing that I couldn’t be governed by anything except God. I also realized that the challenges I was dealing with were not stumbling blocks, but steppingstones. Everything I had been taught in Sunday School, I could apply to my situation to find healing.
I was grateful for the loving and dedicated help from my family, the Christian Science practitioner, the Christian Science nurse, and my classmates who brought me my assignments so I could keep up with my schoolwork. In six weeks I was able to return to school completely healed, and I was so very grateful.
This healing occurred many years ago, and it was so important to me and my future. This wonderful method of healing helped me in my marriage and in raising my family. My husband and I went skiing on our honeymoon, and I have led a very active life, for which I am indeed grateful. To top it off, two years ago I attended a weekend for women at a Christian Science camp, and I was able to zip-line at an age when many might not even try.
I am grateful to Mary Baker Eddy for discovering the truth in the Bible and sharing it with the world through Christian Science.
Jean Fox Hawkins
Brighton, Michigan, US
