Testimony of Healing August 7, 1920 Issue

When I first turned to Christian Science five and a half...

E. Gertrude Freiberg

When I first turned to Christian Science five and a half years ago, I had not known relief from pain for ten years. The optic nerve of one eye was cramped and congested and much inflamed, causing pain in the other eye also, through overstrain. I had been treated by four different specialists. After treating my eyes once a week for six months, changing my glasses on an average of a new pair every two weeks the last oculist finally told me nothing more could be done for me. Three months later my sight had become so blurred, and my eyes so increasingly painful, that I could not read or do any close work. Very despondent, I went to a Christian Science practitioner, feeling that if there was any method by which I could regain my sight, I must try it even though it meant the giving up of my church. Even then my religious prejudice was so intense that I was ready to reject the help of Christian Science had the practitioner during that first interview used a single quotation from Mrs. Eddy's writings. In this particular I believe the practitioner to have been divinely led as she referred only to the Scriptures, so familiar to me yet seemingly so new in the comfort they gave. Indeed I thought them misquoted, and was puzzled until I looked up the quotations in the Bible, to verify them.

I was given one treatment and was asked to read Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy while taking treatment. I borrowed a copy as I did not wish to own the book after finishing treatments; that is, I thought I did not. I read a paragraph each day merely to comply with the practitioner's request, but read it with distaste and in a spirit of criticism. On Sunday morning nine days after the one treatment I had had I took up the book and started to read. Then the thought came to me that if Christian Science was to help me at all I must read this book more open-mindedly. I read for about ten minutes, forgetting the pain and the blurring of the words. When I read some lines in the chapter on "Prayer," I then understood that the healing works of our Lord were not miracles, but the result of the application of a scientific understanding of Principle, which had always been in existence, and is as efficacious now as then. At the moment of that understanding I felt a sharp twitch in the optic nerve of the eye most affected and I knew that the adjustment of my sight had taken place. In that moment of sudden relief from pain, I knew with joy that sight is spiritual, never in nor of matter, and that all healing is possible in Christian Science. I threw away three pairs of glasses at the time. I am deeply grateful to the practitioner who so lovingly led me to this understanding.

Another healing was that of chapped knuckles with which I had been troubled during the winter for a number of years. I always avoided having them seen because of their unsightliness, and was embarrassed one Sunday morning when I saw that they were being noticed by a Scientist to whom I was talking. I apologized for their appearance. A little later I was on my way to church and during the service I realized that I was conscious of no discomfort and on removing my gloves I found my hands completely healed. That healing occurred nearly four years ago and I have had no return of the trouble. In connection with this trouble there had always been the fear of putting my hands into water as it aggravated the condition; this fear has also left me.

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