Testimony of Healing December 28, 1907 Issue

It is with a heart overflowing with love and gratitude...

Alice James

It is with a heart overflowing with love and gratitude to God, and to our dear Leader, that I acknowledge what Christian Science has done for me. Science found me about twelve years ago in a most pitiable condition. I seemed to have all the ills that flesh is heir to,—stomach and heart trouble nervous conditions, and a very bad case of catarrhal trouble for which I had doctored with several of the leading physicians in the county in which we lived, and had taken different medicines without much relief and no permanent benefit. About this time our first child was born, and I seemed to take cold, the effect of which left me in worse condition than ever. The doctor, with many of my friends, and even I myself, feared insanity, and he told my husband not to leave me alone. We struggled along from bad to worse, and all was misery to me, for it seemed as if these ills would overwhelm me.

But man's extremity is God's opportunity. Christian Science found me thus, and my first treatment I shall never forget. I felt as if I had come into a new world, everything seemed so changed. When the practitioner gave me some Christian Science literature to read, I told her I could not read it; that when I received any letters I could not read them, as reading seemed to make me worse. But the Scientist insisted that I try to read. I read all I wanted to, and it never hurt my head at all. My healing, however, was slow; at times I was quite strong, and again I would seem to lose ground, but when I took treatment a little while I would get better. I never seemed entirely free from some trouble or other until last spring, when one day, on finishing the reading of Science and Health, I seemed to be freed from all the nervous trouble. And what a change it was, to be freed from that dreadful condition. I had been so ill for weeks that the children could not talk above a whisper. I had also suffered from melancholy, so that there were weeks in which I would cry half of the time. But, thanks to God, when the healing came these conditions went altogether. I had depended too much on the letter of Science, and had not obeyed the Principle. We are commanded to work out our own salvation, and that is where I had stumbled. I had been shown the way, but had strayed from it. After the nervousness left me a stomach trouble still remained, so that at times I felt I must have help, but Truth urged me to work out my own salvation. One Sunday evening I was alone with God, but fear seemed to overwhelm me and again I felt I must telephone to a practitioner. Truth then seemed to say,

"Work out your own salvation with fear and trembling. For it is God which worketh in you." I knew that Truth was leading me, so I went to work, and it was not over ten minutes until a peaceful feeling came over me and I knew I was healed. I told my husband so, and from that time on I have felt no sense of weakness or fear. I have had no return of the trouble since, and in the language of the psalmist I can say, "Bless the Lord, O my soul: and all that is within me, bless his holy name."

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