I have so much to be grateful for, as I have not needed to seek a medical remedy for healing for over forty years. My first healing seemed like a miracle at the time, and the lessons that I learned have helped me many times since then. My father had passed on, and my mother and sister and I had moved across Australia to a different state where my mother's friends and relatives lived. I left behind my friends and the university that I was going to attend with them. Instead, I enrolled at a teachers' college in the new state.

That first year I was very lonely and unsure of myself, and quite frequently felt confused and frightened. The happy, confident girl that I had been in high school seemed to be lost. Then I began to get sores on one of my legs. Over a period of weeks the difficulty spread to both legs. One day my mother sat down and talked with me. You see, I was just starting to attend a Christian Science Sunday School. I was very interested in what I was learning there, but I really wasn't trying to put it into practice. My mother explained to me that we should never ignore problems but must face them and solve them. She asked if I wanted to go to a doctor or to a Christian Science practitioner for treatment. I halfheartedly said that I "may as well try Christian Science."

We visited a practitioner and talked with him. He gave me something to take home to read. I waited. Nothing happened. I waited some more. Then my mother challenged me again to think about what kind of help I wanted. That night, before going to sleep, I thought about the situation. I realised that what I was doing was, in doing nothing. The practitioner was praying for me, but I wasn't praying or even thinking about God. So I begged God to tell me what to do.

I woke up around midnight with something my Sunday School teacher had said coming to me loud and clear. He had explained that God is Principle. Principle includes order and harmony and everything working together perfectly. Principle is like a great rock; it cannot be moved. We are the reflection of Principle. I figured that if I was the reflection of Principle, then I reflected order and harmony. I sat up in bed, put the light on and looked around. Chaos! Clothes piled on top of lecture notes and on the floor, drying orange peel and apple cores on a plate beside the bed, and you couldn't find the top of the dressing table! I set to work to tidy up. By 3 a.m. that room was in order, including the lecture notes.

Because God is Principle and fills all space and I am God's child and reflect order and harmony, even my body must reflect order and harmony, I reasoned. It could not be out of order. With God's help and love I could put my thoughts in order the way I had put my room in order. I just had to trust God.

Then I remembered a quotation from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: "The divine Ego, or individuality, is reflected in all spiritual individuality from the infinitesimal to the infinite" (p. 336). I took that to mean that I was spiritual and not one tiny little bit of me could be anything but good, since God is good. The fear and confusion left me immediately. I felt very safe and calm, and knew that God was in control of my life.

The next morning when I took the bandages off to have a bath, instead of the sores that had been on my legs just a few hours earlier, there was pink, new skin. My mother and I rejoiced together. That was the end of the disease. But that wasn't all. I had a completely different outlook on life. My life was now in order. I maintained the tidy habits and looked to express harmony in everything I did, including human relationships. At the teachers' college I looked for opportunities to give, instead of expecting to receive. My confidence returned, and so did my happiness, and I made many new friends.

The greatest joy of all, however, was the realisation that the laws of God heal. Just a tiny fragment of understanding, when applied, brings healing.

I have experienced or witnessed many healings in our family since then. Healings of hepatitis, flu, heart problems, measles, unemployment, and relationship problems have brought much joy. Always the physical healing brings great relief, but the spiritual understanding gained each time gives a new basis for thinking and living.

Pauline Elizabeth Hutchinson
Box Hills, Victoria, Australia