Testimony of Healing February 19, 1944 Issue

The memory of a happy and...

Carolyn J. Ayars

The memory of a happy and harmonious family group is very dear to me, and as I grow I realize more clearly that the harmony and freedom we experienced were the result of the operation of divine Principle, the help of Christian Science practitioners, and the Sunday school training we children received.

While I was a freshman at college I reaped some of the fruits of my Sunday school teaching, and found the guidance I needed in making decisions. Christian Science also proved to be my protection at a time of great need, when human help could not have been given. One morning a classmate and I were horseback riding, when the ground gave way under my horse's hoofs, and the horse and I were both thrown into mid-air, for I was riding on the outside of the trail, along a very steep hillside. As I felt myself being flung into space I closed my eyes and immediately declared, "God is my Life." The protecting power of Love was all I was conscious of, as the horse and I both landed on the hill. I rolled one way, and he the other. When we reached the road below, a bystander was able to stop the horse, which had started to run away. Though my clothing was badly torn from the fall on the hillside, the only bodily injury that I had was a surface scratch on my back. I attended a school dance that evening and had no further trouble of any kind from the incident, though the bystander who saw the fall said he could not understand why I was not killed, and the riding master, after hearing my classmate's report, expressed amazement that such a fall had not resulted in serious harm either to myself or to the horse.

During the next three years at college, and for several thereafter, I was attracted by the pleasures of the material senses which were being indulged in by many of my fellow students. Also, I accepted many false theories concerning man which obscured my understanding of what man really is. As a natural result of this erroneous thinking and indulgence, the time came when I was in a very rundown state physically, and full of many fears and perplexities. I turned, in the midst of this trouble, to Christian Science for help. For the patient, loving, and faithful work of the practitioner upon whom I called; for the complete healing of the smoking habit, the freedom from the desire to accept cocktails when among my friends, and the lack of embarrassment in so doing; for new friends who are free from these desires; for the emergence from the material beliefs about man which I had temporarily accepted, to the renewed understanding that man is spiritual and free, I am most grateful.

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