Testimony of Healing May 3, 1999 Issue

Love for God ends smoking habit

Leslie Meyers

I had smoked for twenty years when I finally stopped. I had applied for membership in a branch Church of Christ, Scientist, knowing full well that smoking is not consistent with membership. When I was interviewed, I had a full package of cigarettes in my shirt pocket. When I was asked, Do you smoke? I took a furtive glance at my shirt pocket, and the cigarettes therein. Then, looking my interviewer straight in the eyes, I made a decision on the spot that church membership was more important to me than smoking and said "No."

Upon leaving the interview, I threw the cigarettes away. I haven't smoked a cigarette since then. I'll admit that at first it was difficult. But after reading Science and Health from cover to cover I was quickly healed of even the urge to smoke.

Thirty-one years later I woke one morning and discovered that I couldn't breathe properly. Later that morning a friend who is a medical doctor dropped in for a short visit. He immediately diagnosed my condition as emphysema. After he left, I got in touch with a Christian Science practitioner and advised him of my friend's diagnosis. He encouraged me to read a paragraph in Science and Health that begins, "When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea" (p. 495), and to make the ideas in that paragraph my own. This I did. He finished our first conversation agreeing to treat me through prayer, but also inviting me to pray, as well. On the morning of the tenth day, I was able to call him to say that I would no longer need his help, as I was completely healed. I am so very grateful to Christian Science and its Discoverer, Mary Baker Eddy, for this healing.

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