Testimony of Healing September 28, 1912 Issue

Christian Science was presented to me in 1898, but although...

Dorothee M. de Costa Bolen with contributions from George W. Bolen

Christian Science was presented to me in 1898, but although I read Science and Health I failed to understand its contents. I was homesick, and my surroundings made me feel extremely unhappy, and I believed that I must accept all this patiently, as coming from God. Thus I tried to compromise with my destiny, but as years went on I became misanthropic, and lost faith in God and men. Finally, however, I took courage and confided all my troubles to a lady with whom I was well acquainted and who was a teacher and practitioner of Christian Science. I shall never forget the impression it made when she told me that God is Love, and that Love destroys hate; that God is Truth, and that Truth casts out error, and that I need not suffer from other people's sins. Then for the first time a light appeared in my life which has remained ever since, and I have drawn my daily inspiration from the Bible and the text-book, Science and Health. In this book it is written that "desire is prayer" (p. 1). With the enfoldment of truth in my consciousness came the recognition that God is Love, therefore He is not the creator of evil in any form. Rising in the strength of this truth, I faced the darkness without fear, and proved its powerlessness by reducing the error to its common denominator, nothingness. Where unspeakable misery once reigned, there is now peace, and a calmness which cannot be disturbed.

In June, 1910, I discovered an abnormal growth, which took on a serious form and grew so fast that I was filled with fear and asked a Christian Science practitioner for help. The result was that inside of eleven days the growth had disappeared. Mind had performed the operation painlessly, without leaving a vestige of the complaint. A stomach trouble of many years' standing, as well as rheumatism in my foot, for which I had vainly sought cure in various watering-places in Germany, were thoroughly healed through the study of Science and Health. Later, I had a severe attack of acute lung trouble and spinal meningitis, which greatly alarmed my household and friends, but I had an abiding consciousness of God's omnipresence and omnipotence which lifted me above the physical manifestation, and I knew that there are not two powers,—good and evil. I was, indeed, confident in the assurance of deliverance, because I depended upon God. Through the study of the text-book, my husband was freed of sciatic pain which had troubled him for many years, and in January, 1911, he was completely healed through Christian Science treatment of an eruptive disease which manifested itself in a severe form. In a more recent experience he had a severe injury to the knee-joint. His entire leg was swollen to an enormous size and was discolored. Truth was the only surgeon, and the leg was healed without the usual consequences expected under materia medica, such as shortening of the leg, etc. This to me was a great proof of the power of divine Love.

I thank God daily for the experiences which have led me to the arms of divine Love and given me the assurance that all evil may be overcome. I shall never cease to love that noble woman who has left as a blessed inheritance to suffering humanity the text-book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," with her other valuable works. My prayer is that all men may seek the blessings of Truth, for God is an ever-present help in time of trouble. On page 323 of our text-book we read: "The true idea of God gives the true understanding of Life and Love, robs the grave of victory, takes away all sin and the delusion that there are other minds, and destroys mortality." God, the creator of the universe, is the only Mind, and man as the image of God is the reflection of Spirit and is immortal.

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