Testimony of Healing June 20, 1977 Issue

Some months ago I seemed to be under considerable pressure

Patricia M. Herbert with contributions from Delia Dora Delfino

Some months ago I seemed to be under considerable pressure. I was unwisely trying to do other people's work as well as my own. One night I awoke in severe pain and with difficulty in breathing. As I felt unable to help myself, a Christian Science practitioner was contacted, who agreed to pray for me.

Two statements by Mrs. Eddy were given to me to study, one from Miscellaneous Writings (pp. 82-83) where she says of God, "This Mind, then, is not subject to growth, change, or diminution, but is the divine intelligence, or Principle, of all real being; holding man forever in the rhythmic round of unfolding bliss, as a living witness to and perpetual idea of inexhaustible good." The other reference was from Retrospection and Introspection (p. 61), where she says, "... if you fall asleep, actually conscious of the truth of Christian Science,—namely, that man's harmony is no more to be invaded than the rhythm of the universe,—you cannot awake in fear or suffering of any sort." I tried to get a clearer recognition of this orderly rhythm of the universe, and the effortless unfolding of harmony in man's experience. I saw that man is God's perfect creation, always under the control of divine Mind, and never subject to any supposed laws of matter. I remembered many hymns in the Christian Science Hymnal, especially No. 195, which begins, "Not what I am, O Lord, but what Thou art," with its acknowledgment of God's ever-presence and loving protection. Also I recalled a portion of the last verse of Hymn No. 49, with words adapted from a poem by John Greenleaf Whittier: "Take from us now the strain and stress, /And let our ordered lives confess/The beauty of Thy peace."

I was encouraged to think of pressure being put on a ball. Only when one's hold is released is the ball able to resume its normal shape. During the next few days this was what I had to learn to do—to release the sense of false responsibility and respond instead to God's undoubted ability to direct and govern my whole experience harmoniously. As I did so, healing came.

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