This testimony is given with deep gratitude

This testimony is given with deep gratitude. As a child, and later as a young adult, I believed that God was all-powerful and good. But I could not understand the evil and sorrow in the world and felt that there must be some explanation. When I started reading the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy, I knew that I had found my answer. To me it is summed up in these words on page 472: "All reality is in God and His creation, harmonious and eternal. That which He creates is good, and He makes all that is made. Therefore the only reality of sin, sickness, or death is the awful fact that unrealities seem real to human, erring belief, until God strips off their disguise. They are not true, because they are not of God."

I had very convincing proof of this great truth when I was on a tour visiting the Greek island of Rhodes. I had left the group to look down into a moat, when I was suddenly bitten by something that left the distinctive indentation of a snakebite. Immediately I had a wonderful sense of God's love enfolding me, and sensed that all was well. I thought of how Paul shook off the viper biting his hand and felt no harm (see Acts 28:3-5).

However, next morning the effects of the bite were quite evident. So I held to the spiritual fact that "all of God's creatures, moving in the harmony of Science, are harmless, useful, indestructible" (Science and Health, p. 514). I also reasoned that in God's kingdom of good, there are no poisonous snakes, no poisonous creatures, no poison at all. The discomfort left and I continued with the tour, which involved riding a donkey that day, and was to require considerable walking the following days.

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March 1, 1982
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