Testimony of Healing May 30, 1970 Issue

It has been quite a number of years since Christian Science was...

Mary Simpson Shoaf

It has been quite a number of years since Christian Science was first presented to me. I soon realized that this was the same truth that enabled the prophets and Jesus to heal as they did.

A few years ago I had an experience that seemed so sacred that I felt the very ground was holy. We had an apricot orchard, and when the fruit was about the size of a cherry, the wild pigeons began to come in by the thousands and eat the fruit. It was against the law to shoot them, so we patrolled the orchard, making a circuit every hour or two. The pigeons would fly away in a cloud but would be back in a short while.

One time, as I was making my patrol, I saw a four-leaf clover and picked it up and thought, "Now, if I believed, as some do, that a four-leaf clover would bring good luck, perhaps the pigeons would leave." Then quickly came the thought, "How foolish! That little clover has no more power than the three-leaf clovers which are all over the orchard." I knew that there is just one power and that is God. I thought, "How like the doves, which symbolize purity and peace, these pigeons are." And instead of feeling resentful and disturbed about the birds, I felt a great wave of love and compassion for them flood my consciousness. Then came the thought, "If these apricots are for the pigeons, all right. 'Thy will be done'" (Matt. 6:10). Then I turned and went back into the house and patrolled no more that day.

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