Safe, spiritual healing

There are truths so powerful that the act of realizing them to be true heals sickness, harmonizes relationships, frees from discouragement, and overcomes other limitations. This act of knowing powerful truths - of consciously affirming the reality of what is good and right as the outcome of God, and firmly rejecting, as opposed to divine law, all that is evil - is effective prayer. Christ Jesus said for all time, ''Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free.'' n1

n1 John 8:32.

Because God is all good, His truth must be good, declaring the harmony of man under His supreme government. Because God is infinite, all-power, His truth is the only truth and is sufficient in itself to heal and protect. The Word of God in the Bible reveals His truth, and as we grasp the spiritual significance of Scriptural stories and passages, we are able to benefit from the most uplifting, available, effective healing power in the world.

As an avid backpacker, I have found essential - and freeing - this practical understanding of God and His powerful, healing truth. For example, I am not concerned about being a woman alone in the wilderness, because I realize that the same source of health, joy, and guidance that I learned as a child to rely on is right at hand. Knowing that man is dependent solely on his creator, God, who fills all space, we come to see that we can never be without the help we need.

Once while backpacking in an alpine wilderness, I suddenly became quite ill. For one day I ate no food, drank very little, and was generally unable to rise from my sleeping bag. That evening, as I thought more clearly about the Bible-based truths I had learned in Christian Science - that God is the loving, ever-present source of health and dominion - my body responded.

The next day, though I ate no food until the evening, I scrambled with my heavy backpack - more nimbly and energetically than ever - up steep, rocky trails and across rough and wobbly boulder fields. No medicine, no medical advice, no special foods, were available - or needed. I had God, and God was enough. I backpacked in the alpine country for about two more weeks. There was no return of the problem.

If God is enough in the wilderness, He is also enough in the home, factory, office, school, city street. But wherever we are, our freedom is assured not merely by believing, or agreeing theoretically, that there is a good truth, but by understanding, being convinced of, this truth.

The aim and effect of such scientific prayer is spiritual regeneration, a more conscious unity with God and His law. Physical healing is an inevitable byproduct, for when we know and deeply feel the truth of man - and know ourselves to be, in reality, that God-created, God-governed spiritual man - every aspect of our being is benefited.

Someone commented to me once that he admits the power of prayer in some instances, but that there are some things pra9er cannot do. Persistent scientific prayer, however (in direct contrast to blind faith), can't help being effective, because it brings to bear on the human situation the omnipotent reality of God's nature, His laws, and their constant government of man.

There is nothing that God cannot do. The Bible confirms this. Indeed, if God were occasionally unable to help, there would be no God, for there would be no All; and God is All. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures Mary Baker Eddy n2 defines God as ''the great I am; the all-knowing, all-seeing, all-acting , all-wise, all-loving, and eternal; Principle; Mind; Soul; Spirit; Life; Truth; Love; all substance; intelligence.'' n3

n2 Mrs. Eddy is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science.

n3 Science and Health, p. 587.

Understanding God's allness and the consequent nothingness of discord is the scientific starting point for solving any problem that confronts us. This understanding, cultivated through prayer, Bible study, and pure, Christly living , is something that we can take with us wherever we go; it weighs nothing but is weighty in impact. We don't have to wait until someone prescribes it. We can't accidentally leave it behind in the bathroom cabinet. It is safe, because it comes to us from a changeless, loving, all-powerful God who will never let us down in time of need. DAILY BIBLE VERSE With God all things are possible Matthew 19.26