I should like to express my deep...

Margaret Lowry Butler

I should like to express my deep appreciation for Christian Science through these pages in telling of the beautiful and complete healing of our son some years ago of a dislocated hip, a condition which was congenital.

The dislocation was first discovered when the boy was under two years of age and had not yet walked. My husband and I were earnest students of Christian Science and wished to see the healing come through Science alone. However, strong opposition to this desire from members of the family who were not students of Science so bore in upon us that it appeared wiser under the circumstances to permit surgery for the child.

Two operations were performed, after which a plaster cast was applied. Following this a steel brace was put on the child. During this time I held to the truths taught by Science: that all real being is in God, divine Mind, and that the reflection of Mind, divine Principle, or Love, is the only action or operation taking place.

I was greatly sustained during the ordeal, but at the end of the time set for the cure it was found that the operation was not entirely successful. The right hip, which had also been dislocated, held its position, but the left thigh bone, despite operation, cast, and brace, reverted to a position as far out of the hip socket as it had been before surgery. The doctor admitted there was nothing further he could do except perhaps to wait until the child grew older and then to attempt another operation.

I am grateful for the very clear realization I had at that moment that this would never be necessary, since now we could have the healing in Christian Science, after all. As soon as the brace was removed we called a Christian Science practitioner, who took up treatment for the boy. The adverse human picture was never admitted, and the unchanging perfection of God and of man as His reflection was held to with an increasing degree of unfoldment.

Whenever, as in the first days, the child would fall, even as I helped him up I would declare mentally and firmly (Eccl. 7:29), "God hath made man upright." Corroborating this Scripture is a strong passage from our textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 470): "God is the creator of man, and, the divine Principle of man remaining perfect, the divine idea or reflection, man, remains perfect. Man is the expression of God's being." All of Mrs. Eddy's writings were studied, and our hymns were of great comfort. This line from a well-loved hymn brought particular assurance (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 52): "Love's work and Love must fit."

I do not know just when the actual healing took place. We continued to have treatment for some weeks, and the boy's gait steadied and became normal. Later he won the running and jumping events for his grade at the end of his first year at school. Several years later we again met the doctor who had performed the operation. He said that he knew the boy had been healed in Christian Science, but that he would like an X-ray picture to complete the records of the case. We allowed one final picture to be taken. It showed the left hip as perfectly knit as the other. Many of those who had opposed our reliance on Christian Science treatment have since lovingly acknowledged the healing.

My appreciation grows ever greater for the revelation of Christ's healing power, which came to Mrs. Eddy and which with such fortitude and unceasing devotion she gave to the world in Christian Science.—(Mrs.) Margaret Lowry Butler, Greens Farms, Connecticut.

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Testimony of Healing

In my experience in Christian Science . . .

April 21, 1956

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