Testimony of Healing June 20, 1983 Issue

In this testimony I would like to tell how Christian Science...

HELEN FAVRET WHEELER

In this testimony I would like to tell how Christian Science specifically helped me in my teaching career. As a teacher of first grade, I thought of the classroom in terms of the kingdom of heaven, with everyone an offspring of God, always under divine control and forever expressing the unlimited intelligence and capabilities derived from the divine Mind.

The room itself was a joyful one to enter, full of light, beauty, and orderliness. I knew that because tranquillity, freedom, and joy are all gifts of God, they blend and cannot interfere with one another. With the children, everything was a game, from seeing which row could get up from their desks without making a sound, to learning new words. And when the childen had learned to be so quiet that they were not disturbing anyone in the reading class, they were given the freedom to move quietly about the room.

Basing my approach on this statement in Science and Health by Mrs. Eddy (p. 13), "Love is impartial and universal in its adaptation and bestowals," I gave each child an opportunity to learn to read that very first day of school. Everyone could read the four short sentences beside the pictures on the blackboard smoothly and without stopping between words. Thus each child was able to go home that first day to exclaim joyfully, "I read today!" Fear was cast out, and the children had a great expectancy of good. Never mind if the children's reading was partly rote in the beginning; eyes were being trained to read from left to right, and neither that day nor any other day was slow, laborious reading allowed! This left nothing to undo!

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