Question 1: Share a physical healing or healings in which reading one or more of Skip’s articles played an important part in your own spiritual study and prayer and ultimate healing.

Some years ago, our cat Zephaniah, or Zeph for short, began manifesting a wound-like problem on his hind quarters. Over time it started metastasizing; it would appear on part of his tail or hind quarters, disappear, but then show up elsewhere. I specifically included Zeph in my daily prayers for the family. My wife and I took turns reading to him from the Bible and Mrs. Eddy’s writings. 

We were greatly helped by Skip’s editorial, “God’s Animals” (Sentinel, May 25, 1987). Here are some passages that especially stood out: 

• “The teachings of Christian Science . . . show, for example, that just as we don’t know the real nature of God’s man until we let the Christ, or spiritual idea, illumine our view of man, so also we don’t know the rest of creation as God has actually made it until we’re conceiving it spiritually. As the Christ, Truth, lifts up and transforms our thought we can also expect to come to understand more about all God’s ideas as He has made them.”

• “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy makes the point, ‘God is the Life, or intelligence, which forms and preserves the individuality and identity of animals as well as of men.’ Specifically, then, disbelieving the picture of unbridled carnivorousness, violence, instinctive behavior (i.e., animality) described by the senses, in favor of hewing to the divine facts of a spiritual creation, can begin to give us a different, healing perspective. And this perspective makes us more discerning of God’s actual creation—of the true nature of the divine Mind’s ideas—in our everyday experience.”

• “Many wonderful healings of farm animals and pets have come about through prayer on this basis. I recall as a youngster, for example, seeing our dog healed of a veterinary-diagnosed slipped disk and at another time of a longstanding lump on the head. Once when she was lost I was spiritually impelled, as I prayed, to walk off the road into the middle of a large cornfield, where I was able to go straight to her, pick her up, and take her home.”

Our family also sought support from a Christian Science practitioner, who assured us, “Treating the claim spiritually does not put the animal at a disadvantage. Spiritual healing is the highest sense of love. We’re not depriving, but giving a sense of freedom and the holiness of life. It can be a blessing, not just a recovery.”

At one point, things seemed to take a turn for the worse. Zeph, who usually likes to get around the house, ceased to come up from the basement. He moved very little and seemed to be in a state of resignation. Then our spiritual work assumed even greater fervency. The first day after this occurred, I canceled a meeting with a community group in order to spend the evening in prayer and spiritual study. During the next week, my wife and I continued to work actively as Zeph remained in one spot in the basement.

After the weekend, I made the following entry in my journal: A precious, spiritual experience last evening. When I got home from work, I brought some fresh food down to Zeph. I expressed my love to him and mentioned some truths on the way upstairs. After changing clothes, I headed downstairs and discovered Zeph on a living room chair—his first time out of the basement in more than a week. I decided to sit on the couch and read some of the Lesson to him. He came over, climbed onto my lap, and tenderly kneaded my tummy. I felt he was expressing his gratitude and love for me. How wonderful to see him respond to prayer and treatment and outward expressions of affection. 

From that point on, Zeph never returned to a state of resignation, although the challenge continued for a period of weeks before completely yielding. Throughout this period, I worked with this passage from the chapter “Genesis” in the textbook: “All the varied expressions of God reflect health, holiness, immortality—infinite Life, Truth, and Love” (Science and Health 518:21). This made it clear how much more there is to Zeph than meets the eye—he reflects infinite Life.

The claim never returned. What we witnessed together as a family was not just a recovery, but a blessing!