“…There are no laws of matter.”
/Did the book make changes in your view of Christian Science healing? How would you sum up these changes of view or attitude?
It certainly did. I realize that I had succumbed to the very aggressive suggestion that because materia medica is so insistently present, it might be better in certain instances to turn to medicine. From reading the accounts of people who had had medical diagnoses and/or treatment, I know that:
Medicine does not have all the answers.
Medicine can never restore to people a sense of spiritual wholeness which, whether we know it or not, is what we all yearn for.
Christian Science heals anything and everything, no matter how long it seems to have lasted, how dire the picture, how inadequate the patient may feel. Christian Science heals everything!
Choose from the book two of your favorite accounts of healing and explain why they are especially meaningful to you.
One is the account of James Connell Brown that appears on page 127. He was imprisoned in a Japanese internment camp in 1942. He describes the food given to the prisoners which amounted to almost nothing, and then says,”…through what knowledge I had of Christian Science I knew enough about scientific prayer so that I was able to overcome the problem of an insufficient and unbalanced diet. Never once during the whole three years and eight months of internment did I suffer any of the symptoms of the various malnutritional diseases, or any disease at all. In spite of the thin diet, I was not weakened, nor did I lose any weight during the period, and we worked very hard each day. Other Christian Scientists in our group also had similar protection.” He also says, “We knew that God supplies daily needs through spiritual ideas and that a grateful frame of mind is an open door for adequate supply.”
The other is Peter Henniker Heaton’s healing of a ten-year illness that left him paralyzed, but rather than give up, he memorized Science and Health a page at a time, and gradually, “great spiritual joy filled me – joy that God governed and nothing could interfere with His purpose of present perfection and satisfaction for all. And with the joy came an even keener sense of spiritual innocence, a perception that man, being the individual expression of divine Mind, could never have entertained at any moment any incorrect thinking which could have caused or could justify suffering.”
It seems to me that that last quote from the Heaton testimony sums up what healing in Christian Science is, and despite their very marked differences in human circumstances, the two testimonies I have chosen have these things in common:
Tempting as it must have been, the testifiers did not give up
They studied the bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings daily
They understood that all that we need are ideas, which God is unfolding to us constantly
They maintained a grateful frame of mind
The HUGE thing that I came to see through these and so many of the testimonies in the collection is THERE ARE NO LAWS OF MATTER. For example, Heaton was told that bedsores would develop if he was cared for at home. They didn’t. Material thinking would say that of course if you have a vastly reduced diet, you will lose weight and become weak. The Christian Scientists in the camp didn’t. In both cases, they were focused on finding the higher law of Love, that “God supplies daily needs through spiritual ideas.”
Jot down one of yours, or one of your friends’, or one of your family’s healings, that you hadn’t thought much about or hadn’t even remembered. Begin keeping a list of your healings, as Mrs. Eddy recommended.
Here’s one that happened right after Class and that I hadn’t thought about in quite a while. I had been home from Class for a few days, and was talking to my mom on the phone. She mentioned that she had fallen when she was out walking with my dad and was pretty banged up. She asked if I would pray for her since I’d just got home from Class. I was full of the beauty and simplicity of the truths I’d been learning and was happy to pray. I don’t remember very well how I prayed, but I do remember thinking about that sentence from Psalms, “He shall give his angels charge over thee.” It was clear to me that my mom simply had NOT fallen. She called the next day to say that she was healed. I have been keeping a list of my healings, and it’s interesting to me that ones I hadn’t remembered come to me when I need them – like the one above.
In brief, what are you going to do to be more active in healing yourself and others through prayer and treatment as understood in Christian Science, now that you’ve read this book?
I feel that the Bible and Mrs. Eddy say it best: “Pray without ceasing.” That’s my goal, every day.
(I Thess. 5:17) “A little more grace, a motive made pure, a few truths tenderly told, a heart softened, a character subdued, a life consecrated, would restore the right action of the mental mechanism, and make manifest the movement of body and soul in accord with God.” (Mis. 354:15)
“Be kindly affectioned one to another with brotherly love; in honour preferring one another; Not slothful in business; fervent in spirit; serving the Lord; Rejoicing in hope; patient in tribulation; continuing instant in prayer;” (Rom. 12:9–12)