Testimony of Healing April 20, 1918 Issue

The joy, comfort, peace, and increasing understanding...

Alice R. James

The joy, comfort, peace, and increasing understanding that is coming to each student of Christian Science who is absolutely sincere in his search for Truth, is a memorial to Mrs. Eddy which nothing can touch or destroy. When I first asked for treatment, I was in a deplorable state mentally and physically. I had never been well, having from the time I was a small girl been troubled by constant colds, headaches, bronchitis, tonsillitis, and chronic bowel disorder. For three years before turning to Christian Science I was an invalid, spending the greater part of the time in bed. At times I was away from my family, accompanied by a trained nurse and under the care of the most able specialists in Chicago and New York. I had a very severe case of nervous prostration with about every sort of physical difficulty added thereto. Besides this I was in constant fear of insanity, although assured by my family and the doctors that this would not come to pass. A great prejudice against Christian Science and a rather superior attitude toward its followers kept me for a long time from applying for help, but at last I wanted the truth and turned to it "as the hart panteth after the water brooks," and I found healing. My first visit to the practitioner lifted the fear of insanity completely, hope was awakened, and there followed bit by bit the healing of the other troubles. Two weeks after my first treatment I left off glasses which had been worn many years for reading, and I have never used them since.

In the years that have passed since then, many difficulties, sorrows, and sicknesses have been overcome by the application of the truth. It is only in the last few years, however, that I have begun to understand what it is to be a metaphysician. Although I have gone only a little way, although there is much to undo, much to outgrow, and there are spiritual heights to be gained, I can see a growth in poise, confidence, sincerity, fearlessness, loving-kindness, and peace, which were only sporadically present before. The transformation of unlovely character is the greatest joy of all to the Christian Scientist, for the destruction of disease follows this overcoming.

To tell all that this practical religion is doing for me would be impossible. My little boys are greatly helped by it and they are already beginning to understand that God is Love. Lately there has been the chance for me to "come out strong," as Mark Tapley says, when my husband left to serve his country. The feeling of peace, confidence, and even joy in what he was to uphold, entirely eliminated a selfish sense of separation.

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