Testimony of Healing August 25, 1934 Issue

Deeply grateful for an experience of healing, I wish to...

Sophie A. Scharnberg

Deeply grateful for an experience of healing, I wish to share with others the helpful lessons learned therefrom. Upon going to our garage one day, we found that our new automobile had been stolen. My husband, who was not interested in Christian Science, immediately notified the police department of the robbery, and I endeavored to use the truth that I had learned in Christian Science. More than a week passed without any result; my husband frequently consulted the police, but they held out no hope for the immediate recovery of the car, and bade him be patient. We were very much disturbed at this lack of results, and so I telephoned to a Christian Science practitioner, asking her to give me some help. She asked me to come to see her, and when I told her of the case, she asked me how I had been thinking, and after listening carefully to my words, she said in substance: You have not been successful in correcting this mistake because your thought is wholly concerned with the recovery of your automobile, and not at all concerned with correcting the error that caused the robbery. Now, let us reason for a moment, and see what has happened. A mentality has been tempted by dishonesty, and evidently not knowing how to overcome the temptation, has yielded to its arguments, become its servant, and followed its dictates, with the result that your automobile has been taken from your garage. Now, what do you most desire to prove in this instance? In Christian Science we learn that "honesty is spiritual power" (Science and Health, p. 453). Is it not of utmost importance, then, to prove the spiritual fact, that honesty which bespeaks Principle operates with spiritual power in human consciousness, overtaking, arresting, and correcting every thought of dishonesty? If we hold our thought steadfastly to this truth, we shall be instrumental in establishing man's integrity as a child of God, and, naturally, what belongs to you will be restored; but from first to last our thought must be sincerely concerned in working to correct the wrong mental condition involved in this experience.

On Sunday afternoon a young man came to our house, and when my husband opened the door he recognized the man, and remembered that a few months before he had asked my husband to lend him his automobile, but the request had not been granted; at that time this man had told my husband that he had a prison record. Standing at our door he now said, "I have returned your car and it is being washed and polished at a garage; if you call there you can get it." My husband questioned him, and he further said: "Well, as long as you refused to lend me the car, I took it upon myself to take it. I went up to Sacramento in it, and was having a fine time; but something, I don't know what, happened yesterday, and I began to see how miserable I was to take your car. I couldn't enjoy it any more, so I came back with it to you." In this instance of spiritual recovery, I realized more than ever before the healing power of "the holy influence of Truth" (Science and Health, p. 146) that operates in human consciousness.

One of my earliest healings in Christian Science was the overcoming of mumps. While I was still attending school, quite a few children in our neighborhood had mumps, and my fear was not overcome immediately, so I came down with them. Christian Science help was asked for and in three days I was back at school, although the other children were out for nearly two weeks. I read the Lesson-Sermon from the Christian Science Quarterly and studied as I was taught in the Christian Science Sunday School.

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