Testimony of Healing January 5, 1952 Issue

Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures"...

Maud Bryson Dye

Mary Baker Eddy writes in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 108), "When apparently near the confines of mortal existence, standing already within the shadow of the death-valley, I learned these truths in divine Science: that all real being is in God, the divine Mind, and that Life, Truth, and Love are all-powerful and ever-present." I too was "apparently near the confines of mortal existence" when I learned that God hears and answers prayer when thought is childlike. I had an overactive thyroid gland, which had gradually grown worse over a period of eight years, resulting in an alarming heart condition, extreme nervousness, and sleepless nights. A surgeon who operated on me told me frankly that the only thing he could do was to remove the offending bit of flesh and stop the overactive condition, but that it was too late to restore the wrecked vital organs of the body.

I had been a reader of Science and Health and the other writings of Mrs. Eddy, as well as the Christian Science periodicals, for a number of years, but had made little attempt to put into practice what I read and went along calling on others to work for me, cherishing a vague hope that Christian Science would sometime heal me. For a short time after the operation I was better, and thus the disappointment was great when eventually I found myself in a worse condition than before the operation.

It was then I resolved to turn to God and trust all to Him and not look to others or to other means for help and comfort. I believed without question that all ills of the flesh could be healed by Christian Science treatment, but at that time I was groping in the dark. Many testing times came, and I did not sleep very much for three years, but I continued trusting God and endeavoring to gain a better understanding of Him. For three nights I stood in the shadow of the death valley. On the third night it seemed the end was at hand, but at that point instead of being overwhelmed with fear and calling out to my family, I turned to God in prayer, and I said out loud: "Dear God, I have prayed for myself, and others have prayed for me, and I do not know why I am not healed. If this is my last prayer, I will pray it for little children, for I know they are receptive, and my prayer cannot return void." Then I repeated these words of Jesus' (Matt. 19:14): "Suffer little children, and forbid them not, to come unto me: for of such is the kingdom of heaven."

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