Testimony of Healing June 4, 1921 Issue

My first visit to a Christian Science practitioner's office...

ADELAIDE STITES

My first visit to a Christian Science practitioner's office resulted in an instantaneous healing of tuberculosis, testimony of which has been previously given in The Christian Science Journal. Gratitude for this remarkable healing was the light that shone in the darkness as I struggled through seven years of mental and physical depression in the effort to overcome a supposedly inherited nervous temperament, with its accompanying physical prostration and a tendency to frequent and violent headaches. Several months prior to my healing of this condition, when the pain and weariness seemed unendurable, the thought came, "If this belief has such obduracy that nothing but death can change it, then I will pass through that experience to find my freedom," and I began, in my thought, to prepare for that eventuality, quite unconcernedly, but as being one step in the right direction. But the very fact that I had surrendered all sense of struggle brought immediate relaxation, and the crisis was again past.

Some time later, in a moment of intense struggle, an incident occurred which marked the turning point in my study, and eventually in my healing. I was battling with labored breathing due to an acute cold on the lungs. As the breath came with a groan, the words that were frequently used to comfort others, came in address to the lungs: "You need not struggle so; Love loves you," to be instantly followed by a startled, "Love does not love the flesh," and then the unmistakable and never to be doubted utterance of Truth, "Love loves everything that is!" and, as Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health (p. 123), "The verity of Mind shows conclusively how it is that matter seems to be, but is not." The light had dawned, and I immediately stood on my feet, entirely forgetful of my body.

Up to this point I had interpreted the destruction of matter to mean the annihilation of those objects of which I was conscious, and consequently looked upon my body as an enemy, against which I ever contended, and ever feared. My thought had been surprised into a statement of the truth, and the realization of entity, where I had attempted annihilation, dawned with irresistible conviction. There was no attempt, nor is it possible, to outline the nature of this present reality. It was enough that it was real, and I could patiently await the further elucidations of this fact. Our Leader's writings were sought eagerly, and read as for the first time, and they gave instant and abundant corroborative evidence of the correctness of this logic. Notable among these references was the answer to the question at the bottom of page 60 of "Miscellaneous Writings," in which Mrs. Eddy says, "Every material belief hints the existence of spiritual reality; and if mortals are instructed in spiritual things, it will be seen that material belief, in all its manifestations, reversed, will be found the type and representative of verities priceless, eternal, and just at hand." The joy, freedom, and radiant health that followed this discovery were unspeakable. The desert of human belief had been made to blossom as the rose of metaphysical understanding. Ten years of reasoning from this basis have been rich in demonstration, and in an increasingly clearer consciousness of "Emmanuel" or "God with us."

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Signs of the Times
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