Testimony of Healing August 4, 1906 Issue

With a heart overflowing with gratitude to God, to the...

Ida G. Beauford

With a heart overflowing with gratitude to God, to the Master, and to our beloved Leader, Mrs. Eddy, for her untiring efforts in behalf of "poor tired humanity," I send this testimony, trusting that it may help some one else who is trying to work out of materia medica and the old beliefs of theology. When Christian Science came to me, I was, indeed, without hope and without God in the world. For eight years I had been a trained nurse. Three years of this time was spent in miserable health, the result of bloodpoison and its effects, following vaccination. Often my own suffering seemed greater than that of my patients. Added to this I had been preparing to enter a deaconess order, thence to become a missionary nurse. What should have been progress in the spiritual life was little more than a series of disappointments to me.

After a hard experience in a medical college hospital, sick physically and mentally, I decided that it was out of the question to go into the mission field, and I expressed myself to that effect to the superiors of the order. A long conversation followed, which resulted in leaving me in "outer darkness." I thought God might be somewhere, but where was I to find Him? In this condition I went to the home of a classmate, who was a physician's wife. As I entered she exclaimed, "You look as though you did not have a friend in the world." I answered, "I have none." She responded,—"Do you know what you need? A big dose of Christian Science." I told her I would take or do anything that would help me out of my condition. I had always bitterly opposed the Science, but that was forgotten. I began treatment and in two weeks was a changed woman. I am sure that my practitioner had a storehouse full of patience, for I was full of beliefs of scholastic theology, materia medica, and self-will. As soon, however, as I began to realize what Christian Science was doing, I wished to drop materia medica at once, but my belief in theology, unsatisfactory as it had been, was not to be given up so easily, and it was last to yield.

During the following five months I took care of an infant, which gave me ample time to read. I read Science and Health many times, and with the exception of two chapters, it seemed Greek to me, but I would argue that the Science had healed me, hence it must be the truth, and that some day I would see it. At the end of this time I was obliged to go to another State and care for two relatives who were ill. After a number of weeks it seemed necessary to take one of my patients to a small hospital in a distant town. I went as her nurse, but had not been there two days when the nurse in charge of the institution had to leave on account of sickness, and with no other available help it seemed my duty to shoulder the responsibility. I agreed to remain two months, but months lengthened into years, and at the beginning of the third year I was still superintendent of the hospital, but at heart a Christian Scientist, knowing that when the time came for me to leave, my way would be made clear,—and it was. This proved to me that we cannot bound away from the place where Science finds us, but must work out and upward.

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