Testimony of Healing July 31, 1976 Issue

Throughout my life I always seemed to be the chunky one

Monica Fogg Gerber

Throughout my life I always seemed to be the chunky one. Trying to find appropriate clothes was a chore. I felt embarrassed about my weight, to the point it often hindered my ability to be comfortable with myself and others.

I tried exercises for my figure, wise eating, even a crash diet, only to quickly gain twice what I had lost. I had resigned myself to believing I was born to be rotund, that I couldn't fight the laws of nature. Deep within I knew from healings recounted by others and from having studied the Bible, and Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy that the only laws I need be concerned with were divine.

One of my favorite hymns in the Christian Science Hymnal asks (No. 382): "What is thy birthright, man,/Child of the perfect One?" It goes on to answer: "Thou hast the gift of God—/Dominion over all." This freedom from human limitation is basic to Christian Science. I knew I need not accept enslavement to weight, yet the problem was stubborn. Not with a sense of failure, rather with a most sincere and earnest yearning for help, I followed Mrs. Eddy's guidance in Science and Health (p. 420), "If students do not readily heal themselves, they should early call an experienced Christian Scientist to aid them."