Testimony of Healing April 29, 1922 Issue

What does Christian Science mean to me?

Julia W. Thomas

What does Christian Science mean to me? Each year of my life it means more. In the first place, long ago it gave me the freedom of physical health after several years of invalidism, which was apparently caused by a difficulty with the whole digestive apparatus. Food was distressing to me. I had spent weeks in two different sanitariums and had been under the care of many physicians; but in spite of all efforts to heal me I seemed to be slowly starving to death. I did not turn to Christian Science for healing until after all hope of recovery had been given up. In less than a week's treatment from a practitioner I could take any food I desired with perfect comfort. Very soon the other difficulties either vanished or were so improved as to cause me little trouble. I was suddenly freed from a long and terrible bondage.

This was an instance of quick healing. One would think I should have been perfectly happy; but, strangely enough, it seemed to be only the beginning of a slow working out of morbid mental conditions that had clouded all my childhood and early youth. I can hardly express what this process has been. Through it the lessons learned have been valuable beyond all estimate. First, I learned to be grateful. I had not known the meaning of gratitude. Is it any wonder that the digestive organs had refused to function? Gradually, very gradually, came the "childlike trust," "heaven-born hope, and spiritual love," of which our Leader speaks in "The New Birth" on page 15 of "Miscellaneous Writings." I was being lifted out of the "mists of materiality" (Miscellaneous Writings, p. 205) through an understanding of the truth as shown in Christian Science.

For guidance in all things, Christian Science has taught me to turn to the Word of God in prayer. It has taught me that that Word which guided Abraham, Jacob, Moses, and the prophets; which made Jesus the great Way-shower, and turned Saul the persecutor of Christians into Paul the preacher of Christ; which led our Leader into "the land of Christian Science" (Science and Health, p. 226),—that same Word can be heard by every earnest seeker of the way of Life. And so for Christian Science, which has brought me health, joy, the illumination of the Scriptures, and the understanding of true prayer and its power, I thank God.

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