Testimony of Healing January 6, 1934 Issue

Christian Science came into my experience over twenty...

Mary L. Smith

Christian Science came into my experience over twenty years ago, at a time when I seemed to be at the end of everything. Having left family, home, and friends in the East, I came to a strange city with my husband, and my troubles then began; but the statement that "man's extremity is God's opportunity" proved to be true in my case. Christian Science was presented to me and I was invited to attend a Wednesday evening testimony meeting. Upon entering the church I felt a great sense of peace; the happy faces and the joy expressed by the entire congregation thrilled me, and I felt that I wanted what they evidently had. A friend offered me a copy of Science and Health and another gave me a Bible. I purchased a Christian Science Quarterly.

I had a very definite sense of an anthropomorphic or manlike God, and it did not seem easy to replace that belief with something which I could not see or outline in my thinking. I had wonderful faith, however, and when I would come to such statements as, "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding. In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths," I would try to be obedient. When a problem came up I would tell myself to trust in the Lord with all my heart, and would cling to the subsequent promise until peace was restored. I found that to be very helpful, because, as our revered Leader says in Science and Health (p. 201), "the way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of Love."

By clinging whole-heartedly and steadfastly to the omnipotence and omnipresence of our Father-Mother God we have had many wonderful proofs of the power of Truth over error, including healings of a dislocated hip in one treatment, heart trouble, stomach trouble, and many of the various ailments that present themselves to growing children. Our son, when four years old, fell from the second-story window of a new building. I did not know of it until I saw a man carrying the boy across the lawn to our door. Before they got to the door I declared, "The eternal God is thy refuge, and underneath are the everlasting arms." The man told me what had occurred and said, "You had better look at his foot." It was hanging limp and the child could not get up. Taking him in my arms, I sat down and declared with all my heart, "The Lord God omnipotent reigneth." I also repeated "the scientific statement of being" (Science and Health, p. 468), the ninety-first Psalm, and the Lord's Prayer. After I had prayed aloud for about fifteen minutes, the boy jumped out of my arms and said, "Oh, I have to get my bicycle!" He ran out of the house, and I rejoiced in God's power and His love for all His children.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

Many years ago, when Christian Science was in its infancy,...