Testimony of Healing April 13, 1912 Issue

I have been impressed for some time with a desire to tell...

G. R. Blasingame

I have been impressed for some time with a desire to tell others of my experience in Christian Science. I became acquainted with this teaching while in search for spiritual truth. My parents had brought me up to believe in predestination, and I was taught that their church was "the straight and narrow way" which leads to heaven. From early boyhood I tried to find the truth which the Bible said would make us free, and I read the Bible a great deal. Most of my neighbors were of the same faith as my parents, and it seemed to me they were the best people on earth, and that if any were right in their understanding of the Bible, they must be the ones.

As years rolled on I, however, began to meet with financial misfortunes, and worst of all my wife and two babies were taken from me. This seemed more than I could bear, and the only comfort I could get by talking to my own people and the church-members was that this was God's will. This caused me to make a closer study of the Scriptures, and while I could not understand the Bible, I could not agree with my church friends. At the same time I knew that they were honest in their beliefs. A few years later another baby was taken from me, and right after I lost practically all I had in a financial way. This happened in Arkansas. I had married again, and I took my wife and moved to Arizona, trying to run away from my troubles, but I had been there scarcely one year when my wife was taken, and I was left with three small children, one only six weeks old. I then arranged to take my children back to my old home, which was four days' travel by rail, and it was on this memorable trip that I made up my mind to find out, if possible, why I was thus punished, and if there was a God who foreordained and sent such punishment upon His people.

On reaching my parental home I was given a warm welcome, and my parents did everything in their power to console me in my great trouble. I had been there only a few days when my parents' favorite minister came to the house, and I took the chance to ask him concerning the teachings of the Bible; but the more I talked to him the more I became convinced that he like myself did not understand the deep things of the Scriptures, so I was in as great a tangle as ever. I then returned to Arizona to attend to some matters which occupied my time for four months, and during this time I was constantly reading and praying for spiritual understanding. I visited all the churches there and talked with the pastors, but the more I read the Bible the less I could agree with the explanations of the Bible which they gave me. It seemed at times that there was no peace for me, and I was, as Paul said, "of all men most miserable."

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

I have been impressed for some time with a desire to tell...

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access