The Bible tells us, "Train up a child in the way he should go...

Patricia McMillin Bennett

The Bible tells us, "Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it" (Prov. 22:6). I am one who was exposed to Christian Science from early childhood but was uninterested in it until after attending college. May this testimony bring encouragement to parents faced with such a problem and show them that the training does eventually bear fruit. How grateful I am that, like the prodigal son, I came to myself, recognized that the kingdom of heaven had always been just at hand, and hastened to accept it!

In Science and Health Mrs. Eddy tells us (p. 264), "As mortals gain more correct views of God and man, multitudinous objects of creation, which before were invisible, will become visible." When my husband and I had been married for some time and had no children, he agreed to have a Christian Science practitioner work for us. It was a wonderful opportunity to begin to glimpse the fatherhood and motherhood of God and the spiritual fact that creation is unfoldment. The practitioner and I worked with the above quotation and gained "more correct views." Within a short time a daughter was born; and several years later we were blessed with another daughter. The birth of the second child was completely painless.

We read on page 269 of Science and Health that "metaphysics resolves things into thoughts, and exchanges the objects of sense for the ideas of Soul." The healings we have had in our family through the process of seeing and holding to the spiritual idea are innumerable.

The children have been healed of earache and ear infections, and I have been healed of deafness in one ear through using the spiritual definition of "ears" (ibid., p. 585): "Not organs of the so-called corporeal senses, but spiritual understanding." Our younger daughter was healed in three days of a cut on her eyeball by declaring and then holding to these truths: that vision is spiritual discernment; that her cat, which had injured her, was actually a loving, spiritual idea; and that one idea of God cannot harm another (as the practitioner reminded us). There was no injury to her sight, and no evidence of the cut remained.

How wonderful it is to see the children using the truth themselves! When one daughter was seven years old, she healed herself quickly of a bee sting by refusing to go to the school clinic and by "knowing the truth" as she had been taught in Christian Science. Our other daughter healed herself of a stomach condition by reading several times the passage from Science and Health that was her Sunday School assignment for that week. One of the children was healed of an eye infection when the practitioner reminded me to see as perfect not only the child but also a critical neighbor.

I am grateful beyond words for these and many other proofs of God's care; but I am even more grateful for the spiritual growth I have experienced and the lessons I have learned from each healing. It is wonderful to have a religion that teaches us to see spiritual qualities instead of persons and things. Surely this is the answer to the world's problems! I am indeed grateful to God for giving us Christ Jesus, who promised us the Comforter, and Mrs. Eddy, who so patiently and lovingly worked to give it to us. I am grateful for class instruction and for the annual association meeting.

(Mrs.) Patricia McMillin Bennett
Nashville, Tennessee

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Testimony of Healing

For over twenty years Christian Science has been my only...

June 7, 1969

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