Article May 11, 1992 Issue

Depend on God!

When we're willing to depend only on God, we'll be pleasantly surprised at the healing results.

Udai B. Hoffberg

It was a school vacation and I had hundreds of pages of Moby Dick to read, a paper to write, and a nasty earache. I didn't know, when I called a family friend to pray for me, that I was going to be healed of smoking as well as the earache.

My friend certainly had a better understanding of me than I had of myself. His thought, shining with the light of Christ, with a perception of God's unconditional love for man, accepted neither sin nor suffering as a part of my real, God-created identity. Maybe this explains why, after briefly mentioning the earache, I began a painful confession of an addiction to cigarettes. I included a number of reasons why I would like to be free of the habit, an important one being that I was studying Christian Science. To be a church member, one needed to be free from alcohol, drugs, and tobacco. I realize now that I had never really understood the why of this requirement.

Surprisingly, my friend gently teased me! He didn't seem very impressed with either my "sophisticated" habit or the feeling of guilt. His teasing lightened my heart, weighted, as it was, with devotion to "a pack a day."

Send a comment to the editors

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit

Depend on God!

We'd love to hear from you!

Sign up for unlimited access