One day several years ago I received a telephone...

One day several years ago I received a telephone call from my daughter-in-law, saying that she had some very sad news. My older son (her husband) had passed on in his sleep. The news was a terrible shock to me. I grieved over this loss day and night. It was constantly with me, and I seemed unable to do anything to overcome it. As a student of Christian Science I knew better. Many times in the past my Christian Science teacher had said, "Work in the absolute," and I knew what that meant —to affirm the spiritual truths of God's omnipotence and omnipresence; yet I just didn't seem to care.

Time passed but the feeling of loss did not. I went to visit my daughter in another state. She and her husband are both active, working students of Christian Science. One Sunday I noticed a physical change going on within me. By night my feet hurt me so that I couldn't stand to be touched. Finally I undressed and was lifted into bed.

A Christian Science practitioner was called to pray for me. My legs were lifeless from the knees down. I could pull myself up by my arms, however. Each day we would call the practitioner, who lived halfway across the country. Always calm and clear, he would respond with truths from the Bible and from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. These words from the textbook stayed with me: "deep and conscientious protests of Truth." The whole statement reads (p. 12): "It is neither Science nor Truth which acts through blind belief, nor is it the human understanding of the divine healing Principle as manifested in Jesus, whose humble prayers were deep and conscientious protests of Truth,—of man's likeness to God and of man's unity with Truth and Love." The practitioner encouraged me not to look at the physical evidence, and to refrain from accepting the suggestion that God's man could either be contained in or detained by matter.

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July 18, 1983
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