My gratitude for Christian Science is boundless! I love this wonderful, healing, and practical religion that provides us with solutions to all of our ills. I would specifically like to express my gratitude for a healing I witnessed in the summer of 1993 that showed me once again that apparently physical ills are actually the manifestation of mortal thoughts, and that healing comes when the erroneous thoughts are eliminated by the flooding in of divine Love, Truth.

During that summer, when the flooding in the Midwest had just begun to get serious, one of my horses became severely lame. It was immediately obvious to me that she was manifesting the signs of a foot disease called laminitis, which is also known by the name founder. When I realized what the claim was, besides being very concerned for my horse, I had two economic concerns. First of all, a friend's horse had been stricken with the same problem three months prior and was still extremely lame after literally hundreds of dollars of veterinary care. Second, the horse is one of my horse training center's most useful lesson horses. The fear of the loss of income to my business if this horse were unavailable to my assistant instructors during our busiest season troubled me.

After moving the horse to a larger stall where she would be more comfortable, I went to my house to consult with my pastor—the Bible, and the textbook of Christian Science, Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy. I also looked up the word founder in the dictionary. One of the definitions caught my attention in the light of the constant reports being broadcast on television about the flooding problems. It reads, "To become filled with water and sink, as with a ship." Even though this definition referred to a different use of the word, I was struck by the relevance of the sentence to the local situation, where reports of hundreds of people's homes and businesses being inundated with floodwaters were being aired hourly. I realized that I first needed to pray to refute the belief that anyone's home or business could sink or be submerged. I remembered that our true spiritual home is our consciousness. I reasoned that just as "man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements" (Science and Health, p. 475), so our true home is also not a material structure; it is not made up of wood, bricks, siding, insulation, and other material elements. Our home, like our genuine identity, is found in heaven, which Mrs. Eddy describes as "harmony; the reign of Spirit; government by divine Principle; spirituality; bliss; the atmosphere of Soul" (ibid., p. 587).

I was so comforted to know that I had a choice. Instead of being overwhelmed by the pictures of flood victims, I could instead rejoice in knowing the truth that each person's true home—their consciousness—was spiritual, and could be filled only with what God is sending, which is always good.

With these facts firmly established in my thought, I looked up what Mrs. Eddy says about water. You can imagine my joy when I read this statement in Science and Health: "In metaphor, the dry land illustrates the absolute formations instituted by Mind, while water symbolizes the elements of Mind" (p. 507). It was easy for me to see the total impossibility of anyone's home (or consciousness) being made to sink as the result of being filled with "the elements of Mind"! One's home, or consciousness, cannot be made to sink, but must, in fact, be raised to a higher level of spirituality as it is filled with the elements of Mind—God, good.

I suppose it is needless to say that my horse's lameness disappeared within approximately nine days of its onset. In fact, when I took the horse out for some exercise, she kicked up her heels with joy—in spite of her twenty-two years, and in spite of the dire medical predictions that accompany this particular disease. I am so very grateful for the recovery of this wonderful lesson horse, but I am even more grateful for the enlightenment I have received concerning the safety of everyone's true home, which is heaven.

It is impossible for me to express in words my gratitude for being a student of Christian Science. I am, in a manner of speaking, kicking up my heels in gratitude for this wonderful, healing religion!

Louise Davis Shapleigh
Ballwin, Missouri