Testimony of Healing January 9, 1909 Issue

It is difficult to realize that the simple experiences in...

Clarice Gaylord

It is difficult to realize that the simple experiences in Christian Science healing are as important as the greater ones, although they prove the same underlying truths, viz., that "God is All," and "God is Love" (Science and Health, pp. 366, 2). Several years ago I endured for about eight weeks an acute attack of rheumatic trouble. It was a second attack, and refused to yield to electricity, massage, baths, diet, or medicine. One morning the pain was more severe than usual, and I was in a perfect passion of rebellion,—all the horrible pain, the miserable sin and sorrow that seemed such overpowering factors in life were really outrageous, and resignation contemptible.

A friend in passing stopped to ask me to dine with her that evening. She saw at once that physically I was not in condition to go about, but I was afraid she would see my thoughts were unfit also, and begged her to go away before I should voice them. She did not go quickly enough to escape hearing this, that if God intended life to be as I knew it, I was ready to curse Him. As she hurried away I remembered she was one of those strange people, Christian Scientists, and I called after her that if she could heal me in time, I would come to her dinner. She stopped on the veranda to ask if I really meant it, and I answered none too politely that I did. This occurred at noon, and a little later I felt very sleepy. I had slept only a few moments at a time for several nights, so I made myself as nearly comfortable as possible with pillows, and this was the last I knew about the rheumatic trouble. At the end of two hours I wakened, and was actually startled to find myself perfectly free from pain and soreness, and most wonderfully peaceful.

My thoughts flew back to a time in Austria years before, when a physician told me I might not live more than a few days. I recalled his astonishment when I refused to believe him. I asked him to look at the hills and sky he could see from my window. There was the peace God intended us to know, if only we could find the way out from the awful mess we called life. I insisted that I must know this peace before I could die, and here it was—just a little of it had come to me at last. My friend was young in Science; she never had worked for any one before, and asked me to go to a regular practitioner for explanations and to make sure the work was well done. I had much to unlearn and forget, so much more to learn, before I dared to call myself a follower of Mrs. Eddy, this patient follower of the infinitely patient Christ. "Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them."

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