Testimony of Healing October 23, 1920 Issue

So many cases of poverty need healing to-day, so many...

Violet B. Sanborn

So many cases of poverty need healing to-day, so many are looking for work and supply, that one little experience of mine may be helpful to some one. The problem of supply has confronted me several times since I started out alone in the world just eleven years ago, with but one hundred and eighty dollars left after paying my traveling expenses and freight bills, for I had to move from one city to another. I took a small apartment at twenty-three dollars a month. I never knew just where the money was coming from, but I let one room, and some other work and a great deal of embroidering gave me the necessary supply.

One evening I discovered, however, that I had but a nickel left besides the rent money, which I had put aside and which was due the next day. Great was the temptation to spend that nickel for a loaf of bread, for there was none in the house, but it was Wednesday night and I must go to church. It would be almost impossible for me to walk both ways, for the church was nearly two miles away, and I had to pass through a dark manufacturing part of the city, where it was hardly pleasant to walk alone late at night. Then, too, it was a cold, rainy day in March, with snow and slush in abundance. I decided to walk to church, and ride back, and trust divine Love to get me a loaf of bread. Had I not just been reading, "For thy Maker is thine husband; the Lord of hosts is his name"? Was He not better able and quite as willing to support and supply me as any mortal sense of husband would be? I arrived at the church early, and held fast my nickel, happy and undisturbed by fear. After the service quite a number of ladies whom I knew boarded the homeward bound car with me, and one of them insisted on paying my fare. She remarked that I was always so happy and jolly that she wondered if I had ever known what trouble meant. Trouble had sent me out into the world alone, but I resolved, then and there, that I would always try to be happy and jolly, regardless of an empty purse or an empty larder. So I still had my nickel, and in the morning I went out bright and early for my bread.

Soon the postman came, and among other letters was one registered, and upon opening it I read these three words: "From a friend," and inclosed was a ten-dollar bill. It was nearly a year before I found out where that letter came from. The next day there came a check for fifty dollars, which I never expected to get. Then more work of various kinds, and I felt that I would like a better apartment. I took one, and there I stayed for a year and a half, and never once in all this time did I fail to have the rent ready when due. At the end of that time I felt that I would like a still better apartment, so rented one for fifty dollars a month. Two very small legacies helped, and I went West, where I lived for over six years. Divine Love has been very real to me, for in all these years I have had all my actual needs met. My faith and patience have been sorely tried at times, but my heavenly Father has never failed me. As Mrs. Eddy says, "To those leaning on the sustaining infinite, to-day is big with blessings" (Science and Health, Pref., p. vii). This is the only sure and safe way. And I hear the words over and over again: "All that I have is thine."

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

For one made happy in every way through Christian Science,...