Chronic health issues and incurable disease gone

Before I began learning about Christian Science, I was sick often and went to a doctor or an acupuncturist almost weekly. There seemed to always be something wrong with me physically or emotionally; plus, I felt mentally unstable. My self-worth was low, and I lacked confidence. I was often very depressed and filled with indecisiveness and self-pity; my life spiraled downward.

At one point I was diagnosed with a rare, incurable blood disease. The doctor gave me medicine, saying that it might help, but if it didn’t, I would just have to manage to live with the condition for the rest of my life. I thought to myself, “I will not accept this verdict, and I will find a way out!”

After going to an acupuncturist for a rash I had up and down my body and trying herbs, which didn’t help, I was desperate and exhausted from all of my challenges. My mom had begun studying Christian Science the year before, but I hadn’t been interested at that time. Every so often she’d tried to hand me copies of the Christian Science Sentinel, a weekly magazine that reports on how God’s healing power uplifts and transforms the lives of people all over the world. I wouldn’t accept them. But now I was willing to ask for her help.

I called Mom and asked her to pray for me. She said, “Yes, dear, and I want you to go see a Christian Science practitioner tomorrow.” I said OK.

The Christian Science practitioner (meaning she was in the full-time healing ministry, available to help people through prayer) gave me a copy of “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science. She talked to me about God and my spiritual nature as God’s child, the expression of God’s love.

These ideas were so foreign to me, yet so compelling. I stopped taking the medicine and herbs and began receiving Christian Science treatment. I also immediately started reading Science and Health.

As I read, I realized that the symptoms I was experiencing were not part of my real identity; they were mental suggestions coming to me and suggesting that I could be separated from God, good. I could immediately dismiss them and replace them with the truth about my spiritual nature, and I did. This passage from Science and Health helped me: “Mortals obtain the harmony of health, only as they forsake discord, acknowledge the supremacy of divine Mind, and abandon their material beliefs. Eradicate the image of disease from the perturbed thought before it has taken tangible shape in conscious thought, alias the body, and you prevent the development of disease” (p. 400).

I was no longer afraid of the illness. I no longer attributed any power to the symptoms. I had dominion over these problems because I knew the truth!

Within four days of talking with the practitioner and starting to read Science and Health, I realized that the rash I’d had for months was completely gone. The symptoms related to the blood disease vanished within weeks.

After these healings, I started attending services at a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, in my area. That was in 1988, and I have had many healings over the years, including gaining freedom from the previously mentioned mental instability and depression. I’ve also been healed of asthma, insomnia, and suicidal thoughts, and have been able to follow through on wonderful opportunities by gaining decisiveness and joyful confidence.

Even in the face of troubles of whatever kind, the spiritual fact of our wholeness – and our God-given ability to experience it in our lives – remains. I am extremely grateful for Christian Science.

Adapted from an article published in the March 2, 2020, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.