Not heredity but the “glorious inheritance” of divine Love

Several months ago while climbing the steps to the second floor, I noticed my knee was very painful. At first, I didn’t think much of this and continued to move about my daily activities with some freedom. The next day while climbing steps, I felt this painful action again. I denied it as part my true being because I knew “Mind was truly the source of all harmonious movement…” and it disappeared. On the third day, the pain of mortal mind yelled out again for attention. I turned whole-heartedly to God with His assurance that the work was done. And there was healing.

A couple of weeks later, as I climbed the staircase, the other knee had a sharp pain. The immediate thought was this illusion cannot move about. It was a small version of Mrs. Eddy’s statement, “Disease has no intelligence with which to move itself about or to change itself from one form to another. If disease moves, mind, not matter, moves it; Think less of material conditions and more of spiritual.” It was at this point I remembered my grandmother’s healing account of what some would call arthritis many years ago.

My mother who was not a Christian Scientist had complained about the arthritis which had gripped her for years and didn’t want to hear how her own mother had won her freedom. But I did! So grandmother explained to me that when she found herself with this condition. Every morning before she put her feet on the floor, she would reach out to God and put Him first. It was a struggle to get up. But when she did she went right to her books, studied the Bible-Lesson, and prayed while the household was quiet. By midday, she had some freedom. But the next day, it would try to repeat the past day’s mortal experience. Again, she reached out to God first. This continued for many months until one morning as she reached out to God she simply stood up free from pain. There was never a recurrence of this condition. I asked her what had she learned from this wonderful experience. She said, “Dear, I learned more about fulfilling the First Commandment, Thou shalt have no other God’s before me.”

After the remembrance of this account, my heart was so full of love for God! How could it not be! “Mind is the grand creator, and there can be no power except that which is derived from Mind. If Mind was first chronologically, is first potentially, and must be first eternally, then give to Mind the glory, honor, dominion, and power everlastingly due its holy name.” (S&H 143) Although I loved my grandmother more than anything or anyone and respected my mother, I knew innately my true heredity was not of flesh and blood, but of God. Mrs. Eddy describes beautifully our true inheritance, “What a glorious inheritance is given to us through the understanding of omnipresent Love! More we cannot ask: more we do not want: more we cannot have. This sweet assurance is the “Peace, be still” to all human fears, to suffering of every sort.” (Mis 307). The work was done never to be undone. And I won my freedom!