I am grateful for a healing of arthritis that came after I conquered...

I am grateful for a healing of arthritis that came after I conquered feelings of resentment and bitterness. Bone protrusions in the fingers of my right hand made it hard for me to close these fingers fully, and the thumb looked deformed. However, since the condition did not particularly inconvenience me at work or at home, I did not do specific prayerful work on this problem. Instead, my attention was drawn to a condition in my thought which was inconveniencing me, making me unhappy. A number of instances had occurred over a period of years in which I felt myself to be the victim of others' selfish, unkind, or heedless actions. It wasn't until the pattern of this error emerged as recurrent that I was aroused to see the error as impersonal—not in those other persons whose actions seemed to be damaging my happiness—no matter who they were.

This realization marked a turning point in my thinking. For the first time I could really see the universality of the spiritual, perfect man in God's likeness. Thereafter I watched and worked to see others in my daily affairs as perfect. This effort was much different and demanded more of me than simply seeing man as perfect in the abstract. The belief that others could interfere with my happiness was dissolved. And at the same time those seemingly real bone protrusions were dissolved, showing their supposed reality to have been nothing more than a subjective picture of mortal thought. There has been no return of either the physical or mental conditions in the approximately ten years since the healing.

Financial needs have been more than adequately met through the application of Christian Science. The knowledge that supply is from God, not from a person or a job, has permitted my three daughters and me to achieve whatever was necessary to our harmony and growth, and there always has been sufficient income.

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