Testimony of Healing April 4, 1983 Issue

I am so grateful to give this testimony to glorify...

Name withheld

I am so grateful to give this testimony to glorify God and to affirm the healing power of Christian Science. For about twenty-six years I felt dominated by a form of error that at first had gone undetected but later seemed to have a terrible hold on me. I am a lifelong Christian Scientist, and although I could have asked for the help of a Christian Science practitioner, I chose to work out this problem alone. The fear and embarrassment over the nature of the difficulty were such that I could not talk with anyone about it. Not even my closest friends knew that I was struggling, and had struggled for years, with an almost overwhelming attraction to others of the same sex. At times I felt I was free from this form of sensuality, only to find to my dismay that it was still as real to me as ever.

While the human mind easily recognizes murder and stealing as evils and enforces laws against them, it does not so easily recognize other errors, and sometimes even invites them. These subtle, undetected errors are forms of animal magnetism or false attraction. They sometimes creep into our thinking and into our lives because they have convinced us that they are good. At first I did not see the problem of false attraction as an error. There had been no discussion of this topic when I was a young girl in the Christian Science Sunday School. Nor had I noticed any articles in the Christian Science periodicals pertaining to the subject. I thought I was just different; I did not think I was being disobedient to God's law.

During the mid-sixties, an extremely painful physical condition forced me to spend hours in prayer. The healing of this condition revealed the need for healing in the other area of my life. I prayed earnestly for freedom, and soon afterward an article dealing with homosexuality appeared in the Sentinel. The article really was helpful, and I felt at that time that my healing of this trouble was complete. Class instruction came next in my experience in Christian Science, and it proved invaluable. For a time I seemed free from the error. But as I think about it now, I realize that an inner loneliness and desire still had not been healed. No one can imagine the guilt and anguish I felt when I suddenly found myself very intensely attracted to someone again. I knew it was wrong to feel what I did, but I couldn't seem to feel any other way.

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