Testimony of Healing September 27, 1930 Issue

I am profoundly grateful for many proofs of the sustaining...

Ethelyn T. Chapman

I am profoundly grateful for many proofs of the sustaining power of God's love to man, as revealed through the study and application of Christian Science. I am most grateful to God for our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, through whose teachings I have learned that God, divine good, is man's Life. About fifteen years ago, while I was under a physician's care and undergoing rigid treatments for an organic trouble, because of which I was advised to change climate to ward off lung trouble, a neighbor told me of Christian Science. It did not appeal to me then, so I was sent to the mountains, and in due time the condition seemed to improve. However, two years later a great sorrow came into our home through the passing on of a loved one. This left me overcome with grief to such an extent that the condition above referred to returned with greater force, together with heart trouble. After eight weeks of intense suffering together with the fear of passing on I turned to Christian Science.

I shall never forget the love and patience which the practitioner expressed to me, and the loving explanations she gave me regarding man's relation to God. The first treatment lifted the weight from my heart, and I slept all night, for the first time in eight weeks. I had much to be healed of. Self-pity was slow to yield, but it did so finally. During the following six years my faith was put to the test. I had to prove every step of the way. No sooner would one difficulty come to the surface and be healed by this wonderful truth than another would appear. I am so grateful that I have proved the nothingness of all these false beliefs. I had always believed that I was subject to certain ailments, but through this beautiful truth I now know that man is subject only to divine power.

A chronic case of tonsillitis, of eight years' standing, was beautifully and permanently healed early in my study of Christian Science. Acute appendicitis was also healed while we were in the mountains far away from home with no one to help; but radical reliance on God proved sufficient. Another test came with sciatic rheumatism. This lasted over four months. I am so grateful for the lesson which I gained then, for I have since learned that it was only preparing me for a greater step. As this case seemed stubborn, the faithful practitioner asked me to memorize certain statements of truth from our Lesson-Sermons which appealed to me most. This I did, and later I found that every one that I had memorized referred to God as Life and Love. From the beginning of my study in Christian Science I had been so eager to gain a greater knowledge of the allness of God, Life, and the nothingness of matter and death. The understanding thus gained has sustained me many times. Five months later I was suddenly stricken with hemorrhage, and rushed to a hospital in a semiconscious state. During that day and for several days following I seemed at times to be passing on. Many remarks regarding the hopelessness of my condition were made by physicians and nurses in charge, who thought I did not hear as I seemed lifeless. This gave me an opportunity to hold to the little thread of truth that seemed to encircle me. The statement from page 44 of "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, that Jesus' "three days' work in the sepulchre set the seal of eternity on time. Heproved Life to be deathless and Love to be the master of hate," flooded my consciousness. I also pondered the statement (ibid., p. 376), "Blood never gave life and can never take it away." I wish to state here that after the first day no material remedies were given.

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