Testimony of Healing April 2, 1932 ISSUE

When I turned to Christian Science, I did not know what...

Margaret E. Phillips

When I turned to Christian Science, I did not know what it was to spend a whole day free from suffering. I had tried operations and treatments in hospitals and a sanitarium, but with no lasting benefits. Right here I should like to say that I am deeply grateful to all those who did everything possible, to the best of their understanding, to relieve me from suffering; and I am grateful for the love and patience which were shown me during those trying times.

I had been told that Christian Science healed the sick, but I did not believe it, having always been very antagonistic to what I thought Christian Science to be. In the summer of 1925, however, when it was again presented to me, I was so sick and discouraged that I reached out as a drowning man would to anything held out to save him. I began to read the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy. About two weeks later I awoke one morning to realize that I had slept all night for the first time in many months. This gave me hope and courage, and I decided to try Christian Science for other discordant physical conditions. I also decided that I was willing to accept it for physical healing, but not as a religion, and that I certainly would not ask for help from a practitioner. So I began experimenting on one ailment at a time. I would stop the medicine or treatment I was using for that certain condition; then, if this condition did not improve, I would become fearful, take the medicine or treatment once more, and try again.

During this time I was reading the textbook, and had discovered that it was indeed a "key" to the Scriptures; so I got out my long-neglected Bible and began to read it in connection with Science and Health. This verse stood out to me: "No man can serve two masters: for either he will hate the one, and love the other; or else he will hold to the one, and despise the other. Ye cannot server God and mammon." Then I knew that was just what I had been doing, trying to serve two masters. Although I had not received any benefit from material help for some time, still it was not without a struggle that I gave up all material help and took my stand on the side of Truth. I thought one would help the other; but I found I could not mix Spirit and matter, Truth and error. The last thing I gave up was the taking of a glass of hot water the first thing in the morning; but it finally became clear to me that it was not what I was taking that was wrong, but why I was taking it; that I was putting something before God. Mrs. Eddy tells us on page 167 of Science and Health, "Only through radical reliance on Truth can scientific healing power be realized."

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