Testimony of Healing July 9, 1966 Issue

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst . . ." (Matt. 5:6)

Elizabeth Anson

"Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst . . (Matt. 5:6). When a Christian Science practitioner spoke these words to me many years ago, they gave me the first gleam of hope that one day I could be healed of smoking. I smoked, not for pleasure but from necessity, as it seemed to me then. At times of nervous tension, when I could not eat, I smoked even more. But as I continued the daily study of Christian Science and attended church regularly, I began to see that smoking was not just the harmless vice I had always thought it to be, but an enslaving habit, from which I should be freed. Also as the longing grew to serve the Cause of Christian Science through active church membership, so did the sense of self-condemnation at not being able to demonstrate at least in part the divine Principle of its teachings.

Words cannot express the gratitude that I owe to the practitioners who have helped me at different times and for the love, compassion, and patient encouragement which they poured out to me during this struggle to be free. The second landmark was when I could say to a friend who was also a practitioner: "Bless you for your sense of innocence ! I have spent two hours trying to convince you of how bad I am, and you just don't seem able to take it in !"

She replied: "Of course not! I condemn smoking, not you."

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