Testimony of Healing May 14, 1984 Issue

I was raised in Christian Science

CAROL FREDERIC HIGGINS

I was raised in Christian Science. However, after I completed Christian Science Sunday School at the age of twenty, I did not carry on in this teaching.

A few years later I was living with my mother in San Francisco. On Saturday afternoons I would meet with a group to play basketball. During one game I was struck in the eye and had to leave. I recovered, but the following Saturday I was struck again in the same eye during another game and had to stop playing. It took two weeks for the eye to clear so I could play basketball. Then during a subsequent game the same eye was struck again, and this left a severe cut above it. I was taken to the emergency ward of a local hospital for stitches.

Once I was home, my mother reminded me of the power of God to protect and heal. For the moment, I was not moved by what she said. But next day, in the early morning, I woke with a desire to pray and to study the Bible Lesson (as outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly). Thereafter I became an active student of Science. Soon I learned to incorporate in my morning prayer the following from the Manual of The Mother Church by Mrs. Eddy (Art. VIII, Sect. 6): "Alertness to Duty. ... It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion, and not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind. By his works he shall be judged,—and justified or condemned." (Incidentally, the eye healed completely, without a scar. Also, I played basketball after that and then later when I went back to school—in both cases without injury.)