Testimony of Healing January 23, 1904 Issue

Only ten months ago to me all was despair and darkness...

Clara Wickham

Only ten months ago to me all was despair and darkness; now, health, and love for God and my neighbor. Christian Science found me in the former condition, when my sister induced me to seek help through its teachings. A number of so-called incurable diseases had often made me voice the longing to die. Prominent physicians at home and in Cincinnati had told me that there was no cure for me. I went about from place to place looking for relief from the dreadful suffering caused by asthma, when early last spring, in addition to all other troubles, I was about to lose my eyesight. Pen cannot describe the horror this brought to me at that time,—not to be able to see the coming spring, and to be compelled to sit idly without even the companionship of a book,—this I considered worse than all other troubles combined, and I often cried out, "There can be no God! for why should He punish me thus?"

The eye specialist I called upon treated my eyes, and fitted glasses, but he finally said that the only way to save what eyesight was left would be through an operation. To this I would not consent at once. It was about this time that my sister came on a two weeks' visit and told me of Christian Science. It was all very well, I could see truth in this teaching, but what of the orthodox church that my parents had belonged to ever since I could remember? There was a great struggle of mortal mind and opinions. However, before my sister left I asked for treatment, at the same time asking her when I would be able to lay off my glasses. "You will realize and know when they become unnecessary," she replied. After bidding each other farewell at the station, I returned home, took off my glasses, and laid them aside, saying, "I cannot expect God to set me free while clinging to the glasses. I know God,—all good and all Love,—will not let me wait long for deliverance."

For a few days the struggle between truth and error was strong. I had laid my glasses aside Monday noon, and on Thursday the pain and fear seemed so strong that I left the sitting-room to get my glasses, but before I reached my room I realized my mistake, turned back, and sitting down again I called to mind as much of the scientific statement of being as I could remember. The only Christian Science literature I had was a few Sentinels and an old Quarterly. Inside of an hour from the time I sat down I could take up the Bible and go over that part of the lesson that I could find without the text-book, Science and Health. All pain and blindness were gone, and my eyesight since then has been better than ever before. All other troubles, including the asthma, have left and I am indeed set free.

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