Testimony of Healing April 1, 1905 Issue

It is a little over a year since I was first brought face...

Elizabeth J. van Zeller

It is a little over a year since I was first brought face to face with Christian Science. I had heard of it before, through some wonderful stories told by an old friend who had heard them at the Wednesday evening testimonial meetings, but I was a professional nurse of twenty-four years' experience, and thought, "What nonsense! It never was cancer or pneumonia, or it could not have been healed!" I was a nurse and knew so much about sickness. I had suffered with the sick, and had been heart-broken when there seemed no help,—when our best medical men would say, "We can do nothing." I used to plead with God and beg Him to show us the way out of all that dreadful, hopeless suffering. I knew Christ's teaching and I believed in it. I trusted God and I believed in His justice and love for His children. He, our Father, could not be at fault, and as for Jesus Christ's promises, why did they not hold good? There was a need which medicine could not meet, even though I believed it to be one of God's means to help and heal the sick.

Years passed, and I saw more and more how little is really known regarding sickness, how much we are in the dark, even the best physicians not being able to tell. I loved my profession, my heart ached for the suffering, and I begged often and with tears for light. St. Paul's eighth chapter to the Romans was the greatest comfort to me, and gave me courage and a hope that some day I should understand,—maybe when I had finished this life. I had always asked God to send me where I was most needed, because I wished to do His work. One day I was sent to the house of Christian Scientists. There I found the answer to my prayer in the little book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy. From the first it took possession of me. Was not this Jesus Christ's teaching carried into practice, the very thing I had been longing for, asking for? Here was a remedy for all evil and suffering, the explanation of sin. My heart burned within me when reading this new revelation.

I read every free moment. I was so interested that I did not realize how much there was I did not understand, until the second reading, when the struggle with mortal mind began and many battles had to be fought, but I was in for it. I had found the truth and could no more return to medicine, had I been willing. I had but one desire,—to do the will of the one Mind, divine Love. I have put the teaching of this Science to every practical test, I have had an opportunity of seeing it proved beyond a doubt, and I consider it the only true means of healing.

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