Editorial April 27, 1987 Issue

A book that heals

Michael D. Rissler

To think that reading a book can result in physical healing and can make sin seem absurd stretches human credibility. The first time I sought healing by reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mrs. Eddy, I didn't know what to expect. But within a short period of time I was healed of a serious disease. Not long after that a quick healing of an injury I had received on the football field took place.

I tried to understand how such healings happened, based upon the reading of a book. At first I speculated it was a matter of mentally holding an image in thought of what a normal, healthy organism would be like. And yet I knew that in the cases where I had been healed I hadn't even thought about such things. Then there was a brief period of time when I tried to go back to previously held theological beliefs for an explanation. I tried to conceive of God knowing me much as one human being knows another. And then God—as one influence among many—would be thought of as working a change in me.

But I soon saw the insufficiency of that concept, because it led to a limited view of God that allowed some to suffer, commit evil, or be sick, but not others. It was then that I took another look at Christ Jesus' healing works and what he said about such healing. He had utter confidence that God was ever present, unvarying, and immediate in His answer—as when he said just prior to raising Lazarus from the sepulcher: "Father, I thank thee that thou hast heard me. And I knew that thou hearest me always."^{John 11:41, 42.} I began to see that there was a link between healing and individual willingness to respond to a higher idea of God.

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