"…to see the practice as new every day"
/Did the book make changes in your view of Christian Science healing? How would you sum up these changes of view or attitude?
I’ve thought about this question for quite a while. I was again impressed with the fact that many of the “monumental” healings here and elsewhere recorded come at a point when Christian Science is quite new to the one needing healing.
For years I have tried to read the lesson or anything I study, as if for the first time. This has helped. What I am trying to do now is to see the practice as new every day, to treat from the standpoint of Christian Science being new now, to accept and rejoice over the “... new-old idea, to the spiritual sense of being and of what Life includes” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy, p. 191:12–13 new-old).
I’ve updated my list of healings witnessed in the practice, and recognize a few really remarkable ones that did occur with people quite new to Christian Science. The foundation of a “monumental” healing experience has helped as they’ve progressed and turned again to C.S. for healing that involved more learning and trust, even after joining the church, learning to read the Bible Lessons, and learning how to pray for themselves.
My own view has made my work for myself and my practice better, more needed. I welcome those who either are very new to Christian Science or are returning to it, as well as those who have been church members for years. When any of us realizes we need God as “a very present help in trouble,” that very yearning for God, for Truth and Love, opens thought to receive, as well as “pour in truth through flood-tides of Love.”
Choose from the book two of your favorite accounts of healing and explain why they are especially meaningful to you.
pp.177-180, by Richard Tarrant Bailey, Jr. – This testimony is wonderful, but at first I was so in awe of the way the practitioner acted in this case, that I was intimidated. It made me see the necessity to be ready each day, no matter how difficult a case might seem, to pause to know whether I can commit to accept a case with confidence that divine Love is meeting every need. If that conviction and confidence in divine Love is greater than my sense of the problem described, I can trust God to help me and the patient. Ultimately we turn humbly to God in every case. With the case of Mr. Bailey, the practitioner saw him in the light of Truth, recognized his honesty and what he was really seeking. He said, “The oranges you are seeking are the fruits of Love, and I am going to show you how to find them.”
Another favorite testimony (it is hard to choose only two), was the one on pages 217 to 219, where Velma Lewis Ingraham describes how she had tried to help people she saw on the street in a foreign country (probably Israel or Jordan) who appeared poor and needy. With one boy, rather than giving him again some coins, she actually tried to follow the example of Jesus who “beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals.” In her prayerful effort to do this she describes the coming of light to the whole scene. It was days later that she saw the boy, completely changed. She had said nothing to him, given him no coins or instructions, but he had gotten the clear direction to “wash” from no man. He pointed above and said, “I. I told me.” His leap from poverty and filth to a fresh and clean start, including meaningful employment and happiness was evident, and she was able to witness his progress.
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.
One of the healings in the family happened very quickly apparently during a night of work for my son about a year ago. He and his crew were breaking down a set and clearing a venue after an intense week of work on a large and complicated event. He had asked for support before and during the event. Whenever he has asked me to work for him in Christian Science, he knows that I remember healings he and I witnessed when he was small, and also the hymns that we often sang for comfort and healing. One of those many hymns is 382, “What is thy birthright, man.” That is one we talked about a bit before the event, particularly the part about his God-given dominion.
I didn’t know until later that during the work following the event, his hand was crushed between two large cases. He said he went to his truck, removed his glove and looked only briefly at the hand which was quite painful, feeling like the hand had been crushed. He took some quiet time there to pray. He did not feel the need to call, and knew Truth was with him even at 3 a.m., but told me the following week that he felt calm and sure that all was okay. He put the glove back on and felt he should get back to work with his crew. They finished the work, and when he got home, as he removed the gloves and was washing up, he told me he saw that the hand was neither swollen nor black and blue. He attributed this to God, and testified to the healing the following Wednesday in church.
I just added that to healings I have at least heard about close at hand. My list of healings has become active again, for I have found the way I can best do the task of making and sending out invoices is to remember with each one the evidence of progress and healing. So my list is growing. Some of the list includes healing of pain (tooth, head, foot) all seeming very real, but quieted and stopped; insomnia reversed; shortness of breath relieved in a matter of minutes; bleeding stopped; confusion cleared overnight; fractured arm/shoulder healed; kidney stone passed without intervention; family discord quieted, harmony restored; cat revived in response to prayer; anger dissolved after the justification for it was given up through prayer.
Several years ago, a patient new to Science was given a diagnosis of some form of cancer where count of blood platelets was being monitored. His wife is a Christian Scientist, and he wanted to have Christian Science treatment. He refused medical treatment, but returned to doctors who saw the disease diminishing rather than increasing. Patient finally told doctors he was not going to return for further tests, because they agreed there was no longer evidence of the disease. Not a church member at that time, he offered to spruce up the landscaping at the front of the church, saying, “You have something good here. People need to come in and find out about it.” He is now a branch church member, and is actively studying Christian Science. He has had several other significant proofs of healing in Christian Science.
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?
Briefly, the book has encouraged me to trust God, Truth, even more, and to know that “The confidence inspired by Science lies in the fact that Truth is real and error is unreal.” (SH 368:2-4).