Testimony of Healing March 28, 1942 Issue

It has been a source of much...

Olen D. Casteel

It has been a source of much joy and inspiration to me to read the testimonies of healing in the Christian Science publications, and each one fills me anew with gratitude to God and renews my appreciation of the consecrated life of our Leader, Mary Baker Eddy. Almost immediately after beginning to read her textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," I was instantaneously healed of the tobacco habit of twenty years' duration. The realization of the living presence of divine Love, even though I did not understand very much of the truth, was so inspiring and uplifting to my thought that false appetites and desires disappeared. I have experienced many healings and proofs of God's loving care and presence. He heard my cry from the depths of human despair when I called upon Him. Every healing and demonstration of the power of divine Love, as revealed to us by faithful study of authorized Christian Science literature, has been more than a mere physical healing; it has been a step along the road of experience toward the better understanding of spiritual Truth.

One of these healings stands out in my thought because of the seemingly dreadful aspect of the situation, and because of the serene calm with which I was able to meet it. When I was tightening up a screw jack on a construction job, the handle slipped, any my face struck the jack with stunning force. One side of my face was cut open, and a part of the upper lip was almost severed. The inside of the mouth also was badly lacerated. Immediately I began to work on the case mentally, declaring that "accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind" (Science and Health, p. 424). To mortal sense, it seemed unreasonable to make such a declaration, but I had glimpsed enough of the truth contained in our textbook to have absolute confidence that the case would be healed.

I washed my face at a near-by water faucet. The bleeding stopped, and I was soon ready to resume work. However, because so much fear was expressed by the men on the job, it seemed wiser for me to leave. The men wanted to rush me to a hospital, but I refused medical first aid. While driving to town to see a practitioner I was sustained by many thoughts and passages from the Christian Science textbook, one of which was "the scientific statement of being,"found on page 468. As the practitioner began his loving work, my thought cleared. Fear was banished and replaced by a feeling of calm assurance. I returned to the job, and the practitioner continued to help me. When the lower jaw began to ache and swell, as though it were fractured, the lined from our textbook came to my thought (p. 393): "Have no fear that matter can ache, swell, and be inflamed as a result of a law of any kind, when it is self-evident that matter can have no pain nor inflammation." And as I held firmly to this thought, all sense of fear again left me. The ache stopped immediately, and the swelling began to recede within an hour. "Perfect love casteth out fear." The entire healing was based upon the casting out of fear, and the loving help received was a revelation and inspiration to me.

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