Have you been struggling to heal an illness that just won't yield, in spite of your absolute conviction that Truth does heal? Well, I've been there! And the account in this article is shared with the hope that the spiritual insight that brought my healing can help bring your healing too.

Those who have practiced Christian Science for any length of time will tell you they're convinced that Truth heals and have proved it often enough to keep the occasional doubt at bay. But sometimes (without realizing what we're doing) we tend to get in the way of our spiritual healings by letting material theories and plans take over our thinking.

You can hardly watch television or read a newspaper these days without running into graphic depictions of disease and its behavior. We are told, for instance, that one disease has a particular course to run; that another is supposed to leave its victims hopelessly weak; that still others have various and frightening characteristics of their own.

Well, there were plenty of frightening diseases in Christ Jesus' day too. But the reason he could, and did, heal them all was his absolute, unwavering conviction that all disease is illegitimate and powerless to stand against the power and love of God. And we can be just as unwavering as Jesus was, as we begin to understand that disease is unreal because God, who is Spirit and the source of good alone, never made or empowered any form of evil.

The same Christ-power that enabled the Master to heal is right here today, through Christian Science, enabling us to blot out these aggressive mental pictures of disease and make room in thought for healing.

Sometimes, however, instead of making "healing room" we unconsciously provide a sort of mental stage where disease can play itself out in minute detail—and hold up our healings. Like the director of a play, we mentally map out how the healing should take place and how fast it should occur. I did this last summer and learned some large lessons about not getting in the way of healing.

One Saturday morning I woke up with a miserable cold— practically the flu. To heal it I started off well enough with confident prayer, as I had learned to do in Christian Science. Refusing to accept a cold as any part of my real, spiritual being, I vigorously affirmed the powerful truth from the Bible that man is the image and likeness of God. That in Christ, the true idea of being, we are "perfect and entire, wanting nothing," as James puts it. Wanting (lacking) nothing—health, vitality, well-being. I felt certain of this truth, convinced that by keeping my thinking clearly focused on man's innate spirituality, and by remaining unimpressed and unafraid of the mortal picture of weakness and pain, I would be healed.

So far so good. Except that while I thought my prayer was spiritually based and all-encompassing, there was at the human level a little silent monologue going on. How would I ever get through what looked like three very big things: serve as head usher in church the next day, give a party Monday, and bail my skiff? The mental script went something like this: if you take it easy today, you'll have enough strength to usher tomorrow; then with plenty of rest and prayer you'll manage the party Monday; but you shouldn't do the skiff until Wednesday.

Is it any wonder that by Monday morning I still felt terrible? Then the telephone rang. A friend needed me to help him with his boat. I'd have to use my skiff. Which meant bailing it that morning.

I could have told my friend I didn't feel up to it. But instead I said I'd call him back. Then in less time than it takes to write this, I prayed: "Father, what can I do for You?" I knew that in man's real being he is spiritually empowered, free and whole, and that I was that man. (So are you.) I also knew from my study of Christian Science and many proofs of its healing power that in direct proportion to the presence of harmony—and nothing else—in one's thought, daily human experience is harmonious and health-full.

Suddenly I realized what I had been doing. Unknowingly I'd allowed plenty besides harmony into my thought. I was definitely not following the Biblical example of bringing into captivity "every thought to the obedience of Christ." With my tidy little agenda of tasks, each one with its frugal doling-out of strength, I had been contradicting my own prayers. If I honestly believed—and I did —that man (my real being) is the image of God, complete and perfect in His likeness, fully capable of doing all good, then I had no business entertaining a limited, material view of my capabilities to do whatever right, reasonable task was demanded of me.

As Mrs. Eddy writes in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health: "Every day makes its demands upon us for higher proofs rather than professions of Christian power. These proofs consist solely in the destruction of sin, sickness, and death by the power of Spirit, as Jesus destroyed them. This is an element of progress, and progress is the law of God, whose law demands of us only what we can certainly fulfil."

Clearly, if I hoped to meet this particular day's demands, I'd have to yield to the authority of Truth to provide "higher proofs" of Christian power. I'd have to let Truth destroy, through spiritualization of my thought (my whole thought), whatever beliefs of sin or sickness might be occupying it.

I asked myself some questions. For one thing wasn't it a "sin" to believe that man, God's pure idea, could be separated from Him for one instant by pain and weakness? And what about sickness? Wasn't I admitting, on one hand, that I had been sick and wasn't well yet and wouldn't be for several days, while on the other hand attempting to claim my oneness with God, and my spiritual health and wholeness? Wasn't I accepting the material concept of life in matter, where vitality is supposed to ebb and flow—and eventually run out?

And who is this sinning, sick, weak mortal anyway? Not the real me (or you). I knew that in my true, spiritual selfhood I was God's child. Therefore I was eager to obey His law, confident that no good, wholesome, helpful thing could be demanded of me that I couldn't do.

All right. But how could I prove the reality of that real self, here and now? By acknowledging Truth, letting it flood my thought, letting in the ever-present, healing Christ, which reveals the perfect image that God created.

That's just what I did. And soon, with a heart full of joy, I called my friend to say I'd be ready in an hour. It was this joy, plus the pure desire to manifest true spiritual vitality, that resulted not only in a skiff being bailed in rough-water conditions that would usually have required two people, but also in a complete and perfect healing of weakness and pain. By the time I'd finished the skiff, I wasn't just better; I was well.

What happened? I had stopped thinking in compartments, one spiritual, the other material. I'd stopped trying to direct mortal mind's play and to predetermine the course of healing. There is only one man, the perfect idea God created in His image, and God doesn't operate in compartments or according to human time frames. God is perfect and all-encompassing, and man in His likeness is perfect too.

There's certainly no room in this perfection for divided thought. It's foolish to pray on the one hand to see man's spiritual identity manifested in lifting the human experience closer to the divine, while at the same time denying the possibility of such human and divine coexistence by materially outlining and limiting man's capacities.

So if you've been getting in the way of your healing—as I had been—you can stop right now. That "obstructer" was never really you anyway. And even though what you're facing may seem a lot more serious than a cold, you can take strength and confidence from the truth that no discord—big or small—can have any real authority or staying power when our thought is wholly receptive to the healing Christ.

The Christly joy that Jesus lived to bestow upon mankind is ours now, to keep thought open to healing. "If ye keep my commandments," the Master said, "ye shall abide in my love; even as I have kept my Father's commandments, and abide in his love. These things have I spoken unto you, that my joy might remain in you, and that your joy might be full."

So let's not blame ourselves or feel guilty if healing seems long in coming. With hearts full of joy in God's love, we won't be making room anymore for material theories to get in the way —and suddenly we'll find that healing is here!