Testimony of Healing August 14, 1976 Issue

Several years ago I burned my...

Jane B. Simmons

Several years ago I burned my hand quite badly while preparing breakfast. It was a grease burn, and I wiped the grease off and went on with my work. It was painful, and I tried to turn away from the material evidence to the realization of God's allness and presence and the nothingness of pain in matter. The pain ceased, but the burn looked bad. A blister formed. In a day or two a condition appeared that seemed to me to be an infection. At this point I was beginning to be afraid because I kept thinking it would "go away" and it did not. Instead it got worse and was ugly. All this time I was endeavoring to claim my identity as a spiritual idea of God, free from material laws and conditions. At the same time I would find myself examining the hand and wondering if the infection would spread. My fear was still there.

My husband, who is not a Christian Scientist, came home one afternoon while I was ironing. He walked by me and looked at my hand. He said, "I think you are very foolish not to be doing something about that." I knew he meant, "do something medically." Although I was not tempted to use medication, I knew I had been wrong not to ask for help from a Christian Science practitioner, since my own work had not been successful. That afternoon I wrote to a Christian Science practitioner requesting treatment. In just a few days my answer came.

The letter I received was full of powerful statements of truth. The practitioner asked me to deny that fear or discord has any means of intruding upon man in any form. He quoted the sentence from Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy (p. 210), "Knowing that Soul and its attributes were forever manifested through man, the Master healed the sick, gave sight to the blind, hearing to the deaf, feet to the lame, thus bringing to light the scientific action of the divine Mind on human minds and bodies and giving a better understanding of Soul and salvation." He reminded me that only Soul's government is evidenced in man, and any error claiming to intrude is also a claim that there is present a condition or power which cannot be attributed to Soul, God. In reality Soul's government is the only power. It was pointed out that to believe in infection is to believe in an opposing power, and that I embodied not an opposing power but the ceaseless harmony of Love, which alone is power.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

When our son was just learning to walk, he opened a kitchen...