Testimony of Healing February 20, 1909 Issue

When I was nine years old I fell from a swing and injured...

Anna Spinning

When I was nine years old I fell from a swing and injured my spine. I suffered severely for several days, then gradually grew better. There seemed to be no ill effects from the accident until five years later, when severe headaches would come on whenever I exerted myself considerably. Then I began to have severe pain in the lower part of my back, and also suffered from extreme nervousness. Being of an energetic disposition, I managed for many years to lead an active life, although I spent many valuable days in bed. The pain and soreness in my back gradually increased in extent, until I suffered intensely, while the headaches became more violent and frequent. I lived with medicine bottles in easy reach, and from one to four porous plasters always applied. Having a very happy home and everything to live for, I yet had periods of depression and frequently felt that unless I could be well I did not care to live.

After spending the summer of 1894 away from home in absolute rest and quiet, and having tried several new remedies, I found myself in September of that year no better. I lived in constant dread lest I might acquire the drug habit, having seen its evil effects on a member of my family. At this time I heard of Christian Science through the healing of a friend. I knew absolutely nothing of it, and thought it only a new method of healing disease, but after discovering that it had nothing in common with spiritualism or mesmerism, I decided to give it a trial. I wanted to be strong and well, and I went prepared to be obedient to its rules, as I had always been to my physicians and to rules of hygiene. I expected very little, but as my practitioner advised me to procure a copy of Science and Health I did so. I also obeyed her instructions as to coming to her office for treatment, although I felt too weak to take the long street-car trip. As a result I was completely and permanently healed of my troubles of many years' standing in eight treatments. I did not, however, feel the need at this time of accepting Christian Science, and seemed to get very little understanding of it. I had, as I thought, all I needed, a loving husband and child, a good home and congenial friends, so for ten years I continued to "pray and repent, sin and be sorry" (Science and Health, p. 19), going for treatment to the practitioner for any illness, reading Science and Health occasionally, and once or twice consulting a physician. Then a great sorrow came to me, the foundations of my material happiness slipped from under me, and I was also attacked with a distressing skin disease. Now that I was afflicted, I turned to God, and in His loving-kindness "he brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, and set my feet upon a rock, and established my goings." Since that time, four years ago, I have united with the local Christian Science church, also with The Mother Church in Boston, and have been able to prove by my work that this is indeed the healing gospel of Christ Jesus.

I am very thankful to God for all the blessings that have come to me in my study of Christian Science. I am also very grateful to our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, for the pure and unselfed love which has enabled her to bear the good tidings of present salvation to this age, and for having been helped onward, by precept and example, in my journey out of darkness into light.

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