Editorial August 6, 1921 Issue

Moments of Healing

Gustavus S. Paine

In the practice of Christian Science one often finds that those seeking help will report, before the complete healing comes about, that they have had certain periods of relief, lulls in the seeming tempest of trouble, which have been welcome foretastes of what whole freedom is. The best way is, of course, for healing to be instant and perfect, that is the true healing which replaces sin as well as sickness with the wholeness of Mind's right action. If, however, the healing has seemed slow, it is good to accept every moment of healing as showing that it is possible for one to be free all the time. The control of Mind over its idea that is proved for a day, an hour, or a single instant, must in the end be proved for always.

Each moment in which the student of Christian Science is conscious of divine order in his living is to be cherished with joy, but not with any fear that it may slip away from him or fade into a mere memory that is precious. Just as the man who observes the stars with exact care sees a planet today from one angle and next year from another angle, thus gaining here a little and there a little of the knowledge he is seeking, so the searcher for the true health of Spirit, not matter, rejoices in each real sense of the divine concord, today one phase and to-morrow another, until he fully proves for himself what is real. All that ever has been the feeling of true health is still present to bless, for the being conscious of the one true Life, even for a moment here and a moment there can never be reversed or made void. In the process of healing, the mists of mortal mind which suggest themselves as one's own being may melt and disperse into the nothing which they have always been, either all at once or by degrees. The way to go forward is to be grateful for every moment of freedom and to persist in knowing that the good that is now or ever has been must unfold as the good of eternity.

Healing as found in Christian Science is the new birth. On page 15 of "Miscellaneous Writings" Mrs. Eddy tells us: "The new birth is not the work of a moment. It begins with moments, and goes on with years; moments of surrender to God, of childlike trust and joyful adoption of good; moments of self-abnegation, self-consecration, heaven-born hope, and spiritual love." Every giving way of the belief in matter to the knowing of the truth that Mind alone controls man as idea is progress in healing. To trust in God is to accept the divine Mind as the one I AM, the only "I," the real selfhood, which is Spirit. Man as idea is effect of this one supreme I AM, and thus is truly humble, for effect can do nothing without cause. Surely part of the new birth is the awakening to the fact that man is effect, the action of Spirit, as well as to the fact that Mind alone is cause.

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