Christian Science was introduced to me when I was serving as a nursing sister in a London hospital. At the time I was undergoing a period of great mental stress. This was quickly overcome through Science, and I eventually left medical nursing to become a teacher. I taught in the schools for thirty years, and during the latter part of my teaching career I was in charge of a unit for children considered to be disturbed. Throughout those years Christian Science was a constant help to me.

Several years ago I had arranged to visit a friend two hundred miles away. Before leaving home I felt very unwell and was unable to walk without the aid of a stick. Still, feeling that the journey was an important one, I set off. I prayed for myself during the trip and on arrival felt somewhat better. After a short time, however, I experienced severe pain in my joints and felt very feverish. I could not walk.

My friend telephoned a Christian Science practitioner, who asked me to come to the telephone to speak to her. With difficulty I reached the foot of the stairs and took the phone. I told her that I had all the symptoms of rheumatic fever and mentioned what I had learned about this disease as a medical nurse.

The practitioner lovingly explained that what I had really learned of and expressed as a nurse were spiritually based qualities. These included kindness, patience, caring, obedience, punctuality, persistence, self-abnegation, and so forth. I realized that disease theories I had learned as a medical nurse could not hinder my growing understanding of God's care and love, because as God's manifestation the only thing I could know was spiritual good. I left the telephone healed, and that was the end of the difficulty.

At another time, during a caravan holiday on the coast, I experienced severe pain inside my mouth, and the whole side of my face became swollen and distorted. I spent a day and a night using a Concordance to the writings of Mary Baker Eddy to study passages in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. This passage onpage 393 helped bring the healing: "Have no fear that matter can ache, swell, and be inflamed as the result of a law of any kind, when it is self-evident that matter can have no pain nor inflammation. Your body would suffer no more from tension or wounds than the trunk of a tree which you gash or the electric wire which you stretch, were it not for mortal mind."

In thinking about this passage I realized that mortal mind—the suggestion of intelligence or sensation apart from God, good—had come to me in the form of inflamed feelings over a hurtful experience I had been going through. I refuted the claim that there could be a mind opposite divine Mind, God, and felt at peace.

The pain disappeared and I slept until morning. The swelling and discolouration of my face disappeared before lunchtime, and the inside of my mouth became entirely normal.

I have been healed of severe constipation. The condition, though challenging, was healed quickly with the help of a practitioner.

More recently, I woke early one morning with symptoms of influenza, and by breakfast time I felt very unwell. During the meal I became unconscious. My husband phoned a practitioner, who prayed for me. I gradually improved and was able to get up and sit in a chair. The following morning I was back to normal.

For these healings, for the loving support of a practitioner, and for the help of Christian Science nurses, my husband, and friends, I am very grateful.

Dorothy Burbidge
Winchester, Hampshire, England