Speaker: It certainly is a great comfort to realize that God's healing power and presence are always at hand. A man from Grand Rapids, Michigan, learned this through some very trying circumstances. I think you'll be interested in the experience of Perry Crow. He tells it himself.

Please go ahead, Mr. Crow.

Mr. Crow: During World War II, I took a leave of absence from the company I was with and went to work in a war plant. When the doctors gave me a physical examination, a hernia showed up. And they made me sign a waiver to relieve them of any responsibility relating to this condition. I hadn't really been aware of it before, because it was very slight, and it had never bothered me. Then right after that first examination, my draft board gave me one and classified me as 4-F, physically unfit, because of this condition.

I was brought up in Christian Science. I studied it, accepted its teachings, had seen some wonderful healings; but I was inclined to depend too much on Christian Sci ence practitioners, and so I really didn't do much about applying it myself.

But one day at work I stumbled and fell while I was carrying a very expensive airplane wing. In order to keep from dropping the wing, I fell in such a way that I injured myself quite seriously, and the hernia became very painful. I could hardly walk, and from that time on, I had a great deal of difficulty. Finally I had to start wearing a truss in order to walk at all.

It seems sort of ridiculous, but I just let the months go by. I didn't like the truss; but I was getting along, and it wasn't too bad. And gradually, I guess, I just began accepting the handicap.

By that time there was a shortage of men for the Army, and my draft board sent me, along with a whole trainload of 4-F's, to Detroit for a very thorough physical examination. If any of the conditions could be corrected by surgery, they were inducting the men. But the medical officer who examined me said an operation couldn't correct a condition such as mine. He said I'd been injured beyond repair—that I'd have this thing for the rest of my life. This was quite a shock, and that's when I really woke up.

On the train home from Detroit I began to realize I had to get a better understanding of man as the child of God, perfect, spiritual, reflecting God's qualities. So from that time on, I worked very diligently studying the Bible and "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mary Baker Eddy.

Through this study I was able to replace the frightening picture that had been presented to me with the correct sense of man as the image and likeness of God. I realized that since God had created man spiritual and perfect, he must be perfect; nothing could be out of place in God's spiritual reflection.

The healing didn't come quickly, and it wasn't easy; there was a great deal of fear to overcome. But as I really got to work on the problem, a great many things changed. I tried harder to express God's qualities in everything I did, and I became a more active worker in the church. I tried to put my whole life on the basis of expressing God more.

It took a couple of years before the healing was complete. During that time I was gaining a much clearer concept of man's real being. Then one day at my office I discovered I didn't have my truss on. At first I was puzzled; but when I got home that night, I found the truss in the closet.

A short time later I moved some three hundred square yards of sod on my lawn with no difficulty at all. Some time after that I applied for additional life insurance. The doctor who examined me had known about this condition, but this time he could find no evidence of it. He wanted to know how I'd been healed, because he could see there hadn't been an operation. And, of course, I've had no further trouble since.

Speaker: Thank you so much for your part in our program today, Mr. Crow. It was very helpful to hear how you finally realized the necessity of persistence and devotion in your study and application of Christian Science in order to bring about the healing.

Friends, even when our guest seemed to be indifferent to his problem and began accepting the handicap, God's healing power was still right at hand. It really was a question of waking up and reaching out, reaching out for a clearer understanding of God's presence and power.

There's a common tendency to think the goodness of God is not always available, that it's sometimes far removed from human experience, that we may have to wait until some future time to have the deliverance and the healing, the freedom that comes from God. And yet the Bible makes clear that divine help is always at hand, that God's goodness is unchanging and ever present. We read in Psalms, "God is our refuge and strength, a very present help in trouble."

The important point is that we can experience divine help through spiritual awakening. Here and now we can find freedom from sickness and pain, deliverance from evil. To use the words of Paul, "Now it is high time to awake out of sleep: for now is our salvation nearer than when we believed." After several years of bondage, our guest had such an awakening. He found his liberation much nearer than he had believed it could be.

Fortunately it's never too late to awaken to God's healing presence. We can always lift our thought to a better understanding of God. When we learn in Christian Science that God is divine Life and Love, infinite good, we gain a better concept of our own true selfhood. That's what brings freedom; so, of course, the sooner we gain that understanding, the better.

In Mr. Crow's case, this understanding didn't come quickly. He had to study the Bible and Science and Health diligently. He had a great deal of fear to overcome. He had to learn to be more faithful in expressing God's qualities. Also, he became a more active church worker. Gradually his better understanding of God and man corrected the sense of physical discord. It is the operation of divine Truth, the action of Truth, which brings regeneration and healing.

Christ Jesus pointed the way out of sin and suffering. He made clear that the opportunity is always at hand for all of us to experience man's God-given dominion over discord of every sort. It remains for us to accept the challenge to gain the spiritual understanding that will awaken us to man's unchanging perfection in God's likeness.

Mrs. Eddy describes this awakening and its results in Science and Health. She says (p. 462): "Whoever would demonstrate the healing of Christian Science must abide strictly by its rules, heed every statement, and advance from the rudiments laid down. There is nothing difficult nor toilsome in this task, when the way is pointed out; but self-denial, sincerity, Christianity, and persistence alone win the prize, as they usually do in every department of life."

The musical selection on the program was "Behold What Manner of Love" by MacDermid.