Testimony of Healing September 11, 1978 ISSUE

"But I don't need gloves! I don't catch ivy poisoning!"

Elizabeth C. Mattor

"But I don't need gloves! I don't catch ivy poisoning!" The hill around our dock was covered with the weed, and it was decided I would pull it out. A fairly new student of Christian Science, I was trying to test it at every point in my life that I dared—honestly and with a whole heart, usually in secret. So, with many misgivings on my friend's part, I pulled out every weed barehanded and thought no more of it—until the next day. Then it began to dawn on me that I'd made a bad mistake.

It didn't take much reflection before I remembered the story of the devil's challenge to Christ Jesus to cast himself down from the pinnacle (see Luke 4:9-12). Appalled, I saw the parallel, and the inevitable penalty of following mortal mind, not divine Mind. The itching condition of my hands indicated to me that I had not been following divine Principle.

What to do? There surely was no one to turn to. Christian Science was my adventure, and thus far I had no human guide. There was only one available authority, so I turned to Him, and understood how wrong it was to show off. I understood the difference between calling on God to help, and humanly demanding, outlining, what help is to appear. So I was thoroughly prepared for what then seemed inevitable—to my limited sense of God as Love—and determined that if this happened, I should not suffer in vain, but from that moment on would never be tempted in this fashion again.

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