My two sisters were very much...

Eva P. Donnell

My two sisters were very much interested in Christian Science, and they invited me to attend a Sunday service in a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, with them. I was much impressed with the service and started to read and study Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy. Gradually the light of Truth came to my consciousness, and I knew that God, and only God, is the source of all good.

At that time I was suffering from headaches. But as I read and studied Science and Health, the spiritual understanding unfolded that God, who is Love, would never create this condition or cause it. The healing came very quickly and has been permanent.

About twenty-one years ago I had a discordant throat condition. Having been elected Second Reader in my church, I knew that this error in my consciousness must be destroyed. I saw that I must reject the error and take a radical stand for Truth.

In Science and Health, our beloved Leader has written (p. 463), "A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive." I was freed through prayer from this bondage, and through the consistent study of the Lesson-Sermon in the Christian Science Quarterly and of our Leader's other writings the spiritual understanding of what God is and of man's relationship to Him as a spiritual idea unfolded in my consciousness. I realized that the spiritual perfection of man is the only reality. This healing also has been permanent.

One Sunday recently, I had the symptoms of a severe cold, and I recalled an experience which I had had seven years before when a similar condition was called virus infection. I had a great sense of fear. My sister came to my room when she heard me coughing and read to me several times the description of man, given on page 475 of Science and Health.

After she left my room, I realized that a material body can do nothing of itself without the dictates of mortal mind. I worked to know that as God's perfect child I was not in bondage to sickness and that nothing could separate me from divine Love. Since God is Spirit and is perfect, His image and likeness must be spiritual and perfect. I felt God's presence so clearly it seemed as if I had awakened from a dream. All fear was gone, and I was conscious only of God's allness and love.

The next day these words came to me so persistently that I knew it was a message from divine Love (ibid., p. 393): "Take possession of your body, and govern its feeling and action. Rise in the strength of Spirit to resist all that is unlike good. God has made man capable of this, and nothing can vitiate the ability and power divinely bestowed on man."

Our church was soon to give a lecture, and I worked prayerfully to know that no error could keep me from attending it. The lecturer's closing words from Science and Health were the very statements mentioned above which I had been working with for the three days before the lecture. It was evident to me that the metaphysical work that was done for the lecture had reached my consciousness, and the healing was complete.

I am grateful for the loving encouragement of my sister during this experience. The spiritual enlightenment that came to me with this healing helped me to understand more clearly these words of our beloved Leader (ibid., p. 149): "Whatever guides thought spiritually benefits mind and body."

I thank God for the spiritual unfoldment of Truth in consciousness. —(Miss) Eva P. Donnell, Salem, Massachusetts.

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I am grateful for the Christian Science...

December 5, 1959

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