Article October 7, 2013 Issue

A 'do-it-yourself' project

Cate Vincent

As I walked through our home recently I noticed, and delighted in, all the DIY (do-it-yourself) projects I’ve completed: the willow baskets above the fireplace; the iron pot rack I made in a blacksmith course, then hung above the kitchen sink; the tiny summer house I built, which is just right for a hammock in our garden—all things I’d built myself. (Well, OK, the summer house needed four hands to hold up walls and the roof while we measured and hammered!)

I believe that’s the way it is with healing. Whenever there is a need—whether it’s financial, physical, employment related, or anything else—we learn to go straight to the Father for answers, for direction, for healing. There’s no go-between to get to God. Each of us can learn to heal ourselves, since healing really happens in our own thought.

Yet, as with the summer house, sometimes we need someone to help out. A Christian Science practitioner can support our prayerful efforts and can encourage us to work at finding our own relationship to God. When we invite a practitioner to pray with us, he or she can remind us to deny anything unlike God, good, and then replace that with the truth about God’s idea, perfect man. That’s you! A practitioner’s work enables us to do our own work. A practitioner can hold up the walls while we hammer away—and sometimes, when there’s a need, the practitioner can hammer away while we simply rest in the truth of the Christian Science treatment being given.