Testimony of Healing May 22, 1909 Issue

Whenever I have thought of giving testimony to the...

Anne Goodwin Nissen

Whenever I have thought of giving testimony to the power of Truth as it has been revealed to us in Christian Science, and which has completely revolutionized my life and thought, I have been largely deterred by a sense of bewilderment as to where best to begin or what to enumerate. So overwhelmingly have I been blessed, that mere human intelligence fails to grasp the half of it. The erroneous material beliefs out of which Christian Science has enabled me to struggle,—often desperately and painfully, because of their tenacity, but never hopelessly,—were piled high like "Pelion upon Ossa;" but, in accordance with Isaiah's prophecy that "every mountain and hill shall be made low," so it has come to pass in my life with each difficulty, however huge and mountainous, that has presented itself in my path. It has been a source of emphasized gratitude that even the "stony ground" spoken of in our Lord's parable of the sower may become, by the erosion of mental and physical suffering, receptive soil for the word of divine Love, for this has been the way by which God has brought me out of a valley dark as that of "the shadow of death." Those who have suffered the pangs which must inevitably come as the fruit of yielding one's self a servant to obey the violent and tyrannical dictates of the so-called emotional temperament, know that bitterer than all the ashes of the Dead Sea is this apple of discord. On the other hand, whoever has found redemption from the sway of passion and self-love can say, with the psalmist and from the bottom of a "contrite heart," "He brought me up also out of an horrible pit, out of the miry clay, ... And he hath put a new song in my mouth."

Though for six or seven years I was a chronic sufferer from ills too numerous to mention in detail, I did not take my first steps in Christian Science for the physical healing. It came to me at a time when, after an operation, I had removed from my former home in Nashville, Tenn., to southern California, where I was convinced that I would become better—there was a peculiar lull in my storm of physical ailments, though my mental condition was acutely distressed. After having tried to anchor my frail bark of faith in the harbors of two different orthodox churches, I found myself, in spite of a final frantic search for God, cut adrift on the sea of agnosticism, with leanings toward Hindoo occultism. I thought that if all I read in the Bible—its promises given to those who strive after God—were not true; if a sorely-smitten heart, struggling for light in darkness, is not to be vouchsafed the smallest ray, but gains instead a deeper gloom (and this is what the material interpretation of the Bible was fast plunging me into); if Christ's mission was for a limited time and a favored age, why should I longer hold to the cold comfort that it is respectable and in good form to believe in the Bible, especially (and why this should be the accepted world-thought I have never been able to puzzle out) for women. The doubts which beset me intensified a nature prone to despondency and fatalism under that most deceptive covering, a happy-go-lucky exterior, until—between the warring elements of what seemed inextricably mixed as good and bad in me—I was fast becoming morbid to the verge of self-destruction; but out of this valley of the shadow of worse than material death, for which I had come to pray as the only solution of my difficulties, Christian Science lifted me with mercifully strong and tender hands.

A dear friend asked me if I would read daily in Science and Health, if she gave me the book, and being greatly impressed with the evidence of the consolation which she was getting from her religion in a time of terrible sorrow, I accepted the "little book" with gratitude, and immediately began to read it. I found myself giving up the afternoon naps which had seemed absolutely necessary after my hard days at newspaper reporting, in order to follow up the reading, and from the first there seemed to be "healing in its wings." My tired, bruised heart came back into a sense of rest and peace under the touch of this "balm in Gilead." Its first especial appeal seemed to be to my intelligence. I hardly thought of myself as needing its application to my physical condition, until one day I became acutely conscious of a recurrence of an intestinal trouble which at intervals for a year or more had caused me to suffer great pain and made inroads on my not very large amount of vitality. At the time of the last attack a very prominent and most kindly physician had told me that it was a condition for which little could be done, except to diet and be quiet. Almost unconsciously I thought that I would see the physician in the morning, for it was something that I greatly dreaded because of the acute suffering and also because, after several weeks of pain and inability to retain the simplest food, I had always been weak and utterly unfit for my work. Almost on the heels of my thought that I would consult a doctor, came the question, "If your intelligence approves so unqualifiedly of what you have been reading, and if you have always looked for just this practical proof of God's power, why not put it to the test?" Next day, instead of consulting a doctor, I went to a Christian Science practitioner and received treatment. I told her of having always had to diet when in this condition, and her reply was that I must not have any fear that food could affect me in any way. This was just before luncheon, and when I went to the restaurant the first item I saw on the bill of fare was cucumbers. This was indeed a test. From my earliest childhood these had been the "forbidden fruit," and not even the healthiest members of our large family were allowed to touch them so long as we were under our father's eye. For a moment I was frankly appalled at this phase of things, but I was determined to see the matter through. I asserted as best I knew how my new-found laws of freedom, and ate heartily of the tempting cucumbers. Almost to my surprise there was no bad effect from the eating, and within forty-eight hours the trouble had disappeared—never to return, though two years have passed and at one time for three months my food came almost entirely from tin cans.

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