Testimony of Healing October 24, 1977 Issue

I wish to state my profound gratitude for Christian Science, particularly...

Diana De Jersey Rodwell

I wish to state my profound gratitude for Christian Science, particularly for the child I now have. After deciding to have a family, I had a number of miscarriages; so many that the gynecologist kindly told me it was quite impossible for me to have a baby.

I had been brought up in a Christian Science home. My mother is a practitioner, and what incidents or ailments occurred in our childhood and teen-age years had always been dealt with immediately through prayer in Christian Science and always with very quick healing results. I had read a number of testimonies where people had heard devastating verdicts, such as I was hearing. Treatment in Christian Science had reversed the medical verdicts. The years of miscarriages had been harrowing and fraught with anxieties and ever-increasing fear. I felt there was only God to turn to. I rang a Christian Science practitioner, telling her all that had been told me. She agreed to treat me through prayer and told me to study in Christian Science to gain a true concept of life as spiritual and not dependent on, or being produced by, any material means. I began this study and also found special inspiration in seeking a truer concept of children.

Mrs. Eddy gives this spiritual definition of "children" in the Glossary of Science and Health (p. 582): "The spiritual thoughts and representatives of Life, Truth, and Love." This helped me realize the child I longed for already was, as a representative of God. Within a few weeks it seemed wise for me to take time off from my work as a teacher to give more time to study, as I was with child. The words "Be still, and know that I am God" (Ps. 46:10) guided me to this decision to withdraw from my job. I needed to deal conclusively with fear, as one can keep very busy and not handle the belief. As the weeks passed I was so deeply grateful for class instruction, which I had had not long before, and for the practitioner whose devotion was unwavering. At times I felt like Elijah on the mount, but there were also times of crisis. At these times the practitioner gave me simple statements to work with from the Bible and Science and Health and from the Christian Science Hymnal, showing that divine Love is Life, and that man is the expression of the Life that is God, divine Love. These statements gave me much illumination of thought, and the crises passed.