Testimony of Healing January 26, 1929 Issue

It is with deep gratitude I write this testimony of the...

Mary Elizabeth Pawling

It is with deep gratitude I write this testimony of the healing power of divine Love. About fourteen years ago a medical doctor said I had only a short time to live: not more than three weeks at the longest. The disease was called gallstones. I could not be operated upon, for my heart was too weak for me to take an anæsthetic. I was told also that if I had any business matters to attend to I had better do so at once. After attending to my business affairs, I started seeking health at different springs. These failed to be of benefit to me, and I almost decided that the doctor was right. However, I tenaciously held on to life, for I wanted to live to see my baby daughter old enough to take care of herself. About a year previous to this another doctor had diagnosed my case as cancer of the stomach, but doubted whether an operation would be successful. With all this bearing heavily on my mind, like a drowning man I was ready to grasp at anything.

The year before, while on a business trip in a city, I had attended a Christian Science Wednesday evening testimony meeting. I went out of curiosity; and after leaving, I criticized the testimonies, saying they sounded absurd and impossible. I was visiting a friend when I was taken suddenly very ill. She suggested that I try Christian Science. As the seed had been sown by attending the Wednesday evening meeting some time before, I remarked that it could do no harm. Not finding a practitioner in the small city, I arose from my bed and traveled one hundred and twenty miles to find one. On reaching the home of the practitioner I had to climb a flight of steps. At the moment this frightened me, since I had been told not to exert myself, the heart's action being liable to stop from overexertion. I succeeded in gaining her office; and after I had informed her of my condition and of what the doctors had told me, she said that God was my life and strength, something which had never been told me before. I replied that I wanted Life, and if she would only tell me how to obtain it I would get it myself. She told me to get "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy and study it in connection with the Bible, and I would be healed; but if I did not get results, to come back, and she would give me treatment. I never went back, for I had found the "pearl of great price." On reading the chapter on Prayer in Science and Health I found the peace I longed for.

Although my healing was slow, I saw that my life and strength came from God. Diligently studying the Bible and Science and Health I never had a doubt but that it contained the revelation of the truth. While I am grateful for this and many other healings, I am most grateful for spiritual uplifting through knowing God and and man's relation to Him.

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