Testimony of Healing May 25, 1918 Issue

The testimonies in the Sentinel and the Journal have...

Marie Stuart Taylor

The testimonies in the Sentinel and the Journal have been such a comfort and help to me that I want to add my mite, and thus perhaps help some one else who is struggling to grow in the understanding of Truth. Brought up in an orthodox church, ritual and form meant much to me, and I loved the beauty of the song service; but as life's problems pressed upon me,—and I had many,—I did not find the comfort needed, and when sorrow knocked at my door, instead of having a God to whom I could go and there find rest and peace, I had only a God to fear! This fear grew, and with it resentment; I could not see why so much sorrow should come to me and mine, and rebelled at the idea of loving a God who had chastened me so severely. Why was I treated like an automaton with no reasoning powers, if I were, as the Bible said, God's image, and as our church catechism stated, a "child of God and an inheritor of the kingdom of heaven"? These feelings and arguments frightened me, and I grew to dread the thought of church, especially the communion service. Only since I have come into Christian Science have I understood why the communion affected me so; for I had been a member of the church since childhood and an earnest worker in it, too. I now see that I dwelt too much upon the physical sufferings of Christ Jesus, and made them such a reality that his blessed mission and his true self as God's Son were hidden from me.

I had for years been a nervous semi-invalid; my condition was due entirely to overdoing and imagination and a horror of disease of all kinds. I grew steadily worse, and was in a critical condition for months. Through the care of my husband and my own determination not to allow nerves to get the mastery over me—for I had been told that there was no organic trouble—I began slowly to improve, but I longed for a tangible religion. It was all very well to try to be optimistic; but if God did not send illness, why did He allow it? Then, after years of suffering, both mental and physical, the truth of Christian Science came to me. It came very slowly; but as the understanding of God as Love grew in my consciousness, nothing else seemed to matter; for had I not at last found a loving Father? It had been so hard all those years to want to love Him, yet to feel that I could not, because of His seeming injustice! But to know Him as Love, as the Father-Mother God who sends only good, as divine Principle forever operative and always present, was so beautiful after the weary years of doubt and resentment!

The way was far from easy for me, for I had so much to overcome in the old belief; each limitation had to be broken down. The coldness and misunderstanding of loved ones was hard to bear; but as each erroneous belief was overcome and its nothingness proved, the freedom was very sweet and restful, and more than worth while. I found it no easy matter, however, to be a Christian Scientist. Mrs. Eddy says, "Prayer, watching, and working, combined with self-immolation, are God's gracious means for accomplishing whatever has been successfully done for the Christianization and health of mankind" (Science and Health, p. 1). I am daily and hourly proving this statement to be true, as well as others our Leader has so lovingly given us in her books. Constant watching of our thoughts and speech, absolute selflessness, and a desire to grow more and more up to the stature of the Christ, alone enable one to demonstrate even in a slight degree this beautiful and scientific truth.

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