QUICK RECOVERY FROM LIFE-THREATENING CONDITION

One night more than fifteen years ago, I woke with severe pain in my head. What followed was five days of physical torment. Yet with the help of several Christian Science practitioners at different times when things seemed most critical, I was able to stand with God and win a victory.

What became clear to me through all this was that nothing could hinder my growing confidence in God as All and as able to care for me completely, no matter what the circumstance. I also developed an increasing conviction that my true being as the eternal reflection of eternal Life had never been born into matter, was not living in it now, and could therefore not die out of it.

I feel that instrumental in this complete healing was my pondering Hymn No. 85 from the Christian Science Hymnal, which assures us,

I read through the entire Hymnal during this five-day period. I was also helped by an address in The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany by Mary Baker Eddy, which includes this comforting statement to The Mother Church (p. 132 ): "Oh, may this hour be prolific, and at this time and in every heart may there come this benediction: Thou hast no longer to appeal to human strength, to strive with agony; I am thy deliverer. 'Of His own will begat He us with the word of truth.'" And this statement from Science and Health held great meaning for me (p. 249 ): "Either there is no omnipotence, or omnipotence is the only power."

A crisis occurred one night, when I seemed to be passing on. A friend, who is a practitioner, came to my bedside. He encouraged me to repeat after him that I was Love's beloved, normal expression right then, and I repeated this until I could speak clearly. (I had not been able to swallow or talk articulately for two or three days.)

Half an hour after the practitioner left, a substance passed from my throat, and all pain ceased. I slept peacefully for the first time in days and woke feeling free but with the sensation of having no roof in my mouth. Within two days of continued Christian Science treatment, the palate was totally restored. I was up and about, wholly recovered and with no signs of weakness or disease.

I thought no more of this experience until about three months later. Then, while giving me a routine teeth cleaning, a dentist asked if I had recently had an operation on the roof of my mouth. He said that he didn't want to alarm me, for the condition had been healed. But it looked to him as though I had had surgery for cancer of the soft palate.

Needless to say, my gratitude to God for Christian Science and for our wonderful practitioners is boundless. I'd also like to acknowledge my parents, who faithfully supported me through their own loving, scientific stand for Truth throughout this challenge.

"Remember, thou canst be brought into no condition, be it ever so severe, where Love has not been before thee and where its tender lesson is not awaiting thee. Therefore despair not nor murmur, for that which seeketh to save, to heal, and to deliver, will guide thee, if thou seekest this guidance" (Miscellany, pp. 149—150 ).

Thank you, God, for maintaining my life and, more important, for the character transformation that begins with just a glimpse of the certainty of immortality.

Gwenn Eloise Gurnack
Southbury, Connecticut

(From a testimony originally published in The Christian Science Sentinel, October 1, 1984)