Testimony of Healing July 27, 1929 Issue

This is to tell of an instantaneous healing which I experienced...

Mary McNeil Fenollosa

This is to tell of an instantaneous healing which I experienced at a Christian Science lecture after I had been a student for about five years. I had sold my home in the South and was busy with the sad task of dismantling it when, on an attic stair, a nail or splinter ran through the sole of my light house slipper and into my foot. Whatever the object was, it broke off short. Pain and swelling commenced at once. I did not resort to applications for my foot, or medical aid of any sort. I did what I could with the knowledge of Christian Science then at my disposal. For days at a time the swelling and pain would diminish, but they always returned. While in this condition I was called to a northern city by the sudden illness of my mother, then on a visit to a son who had gone into business there. I was limping badly and in constant pain. My mother and other relatives, none of whom had faith in Christian Science healing, urged me to go at once to a surgeon, predicting disastrous results if I neglected to do so. I replied that I expected to have help for it, and would seek help just as soon as my mother was well enough for me to leave the house for any length of time. My idea was, of course, to seek out one of the many practitioners listed for that city in The Christian Science Journal.

Before this could be done a lecture was announced for the afternoon of the next Sunday, and in a church edifice to which, fortunately, I knew the way. I went alone. I had heard the lecturer before, though in a different city, and knew that the church would be crowded. Because of this, and also because of the fact that all walking caused much pain and had to be done slowly, I started very early. I had been obliged to purchase a pair of shoes that were much too large for me. Even so, the moment I was seated I unlaced the left shoe and slipped it partly off. In the early part of his lecture, the lecturer spoke of healings that frequently took place on such occasions. "Where there were open-minded listeners," he said, and "the Word was spoken with power," healings must inevitably result. It is now, in retrospect, rather strange to me that I did not at the time seek to connect this helpful statement with my own physical necessity; but that I did not do so is quite sure. When the hour was at an end, I slipped on my left shoe and hurried from the church. There were wide granite steps leading up to it from the pavement. In approaching, the climbing of these had been slow and painful. It was not until I found myself almost running down those same long steps that I knew I was healed. The inflammation and incessant throbbing pain had gone.

Another healing of a very different sort came only after two years of almost constant work, both on my part and that of several practitioners. I was seeking deliverance from the annoying bondage of the cigarette smoking habit, acquired before I began to study Christian Science. I had been abroad where most of the women smoked, and once agreed to "try one," never dreaming of the subtle hold which error wields through tobacco. It was a great surprise, when I attempted to give up smoking, to find I was a slave to it. At first I used to read the various testimonies, or listen to them at Wednesday evening meetings; and at each healing of the smoking habit, I thought, If that one can be healed so easily, why is it so hard for me? I shall never forget the Sunday afternoon when, in reading such a testimony, I thanked God for it, and was done with envying. I realized long afterward that from that hour I began to move more swiftly toward my own complete deliverance. When the moment came I knew it instantly. I was not smoking, but was doing some trivial household task. This was about six years ago; and since then I have never had the least desire to smoke.

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