Are you sure?
This bookmark will be removed from all folders and any saved notes will be permanently removed.
Hold their hand in church
How often have you wanted a relative or friend to embrace some of the healing truths that are so helpful to you because your wish is for them to share the great goodness that you know is available to all? Yet for one reason or another they do not feel it is either necessary or helpful.
When I became engaged, I was quite concerned to realize that my husband-to-be and I might attend different churches. Would this pull us apart? What if we had children? What church would they attend?
At this point Christian Science was not even open for discussion between us since there was too much family animosity. But my desire was that when we were married, we would be a one-church family.
I expressed these concerns to a dear friend of mine, whose only comment was, “Just hold his hand in church!” At the time this certainly did not seem to be very practical advice since my fiancé didn’t attend church at all. However, I continued to think a lot about what my friend had said.
One week the Christian Science Bible Lesson included the definition of Church, as given by Mary Baker Eddy in the Glossary of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. It begins, “The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle” (p. 583 ). As I read it, I realized that Love is spiritual and that every idea of God is always included in that Love. Since everyone exists in divine Mind, one idea can never be separated from another.
As I thought about this every day, it became my way of praying about the situation. I knew that my dear fiancé and all of God’s children are always included in this lovely idea of Church.
At this time my fiancé became ill with the recurring symptoms of rheumatic fever, which had begun when he was a child. His mother scheduled an appointment with a physician, who said that his heart had been affected. He advised that my fiancé could no longer work or attend college, and that he could engage in very little physical activity. The physician also prescribed some medicine.
When my fiancé called me with these results, he said he felt his life was over and asked what I would do if I were given this diagnosis. My answer was, “I would read a book—Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.” My fiancé came to get this book and said he would read it. Later that evening, he called and said that he had to take the medication. I told him not to worry, but to just keep reading. He did, and that was the last medication he ever took.
Quite some time later, after we had married, he had a medical examination for enlistment in the National Guard. The physician pronounced him “A-OK.” My husband told him the diagnosis given by the former physician. The examining physician remarked, “I’d say either you are lying or a miracle occurred!”
My husband and I have been married for over five decades now. He has continued to study Christian Science all that time and currently serves as First Reader of our church.
—Helen Simpson, Terre Haute, Indiana, US