Tumor Dissolved

I was raised in a family that practiced Christian Science, and had seen many remarkable healings just through prayer. Then, a few years ago, I noticed a growth in my abdominal area. I prayed about it for a time, but I started to feel like the problem was too big for me. I was very afraid. I'd never been to a doctor before, but I went ahead and made an appointment with one. The doctor found a fibroid tumor and told me that I needed to have surgery right away. He also said that further surgery might be necessary later on, as well as a leave of absence from work for two to three months.

When I left his office, I was at my lowest point. But it was actually a turning point. That's when I started to wake up. All my life, I'd thought of myself in spiritual terms. In Sunday School, I learned many truths about my relationship to God. I learned that I was the "image and likeness" of God, that God was Spirit, and that since I was Spirit's image, I must be completely spiritual, not material.

It seemed so clear to me now that I didn't want to think of myself in a material way. That would be kind of like slavery. Spiritual sense tells you what's right and what's wrong. And my spiritual sense told me that this condition was no part of God's plan for me.

I decided I was going to rebel against this whole notion that I was just a piece of meat. I remembered a dramatic healing I'd heard about several years earlier when I was in college. A fellow student had had a complete healing of a very large fibroid tumor through studying Christian Science. After she'd been healed, we went out together one night, and she told me about this healing and how it had happened. This made quite an impression on me.

One of the things I recalled about her healing was that she said she learned that you don't have to be a perfect person to experience spiritual healing. God loves us right where we are, wherever that may be. I knew that even if I'd made some mistakes in my life, God was still with me. And I remembered some of the healings that I'd had and that members of my family had had. These healings proved to me that God is the great Physician.

I've heard people describe spiritual healings by saying that they woke up. And that's how it felt to me. I woke up and realized that there was no truth but God's truth. I needed to know and understand God's truth. And the truth was that there was nothing in His perfect creation that needed to be removed. I got back to those basic concepts—that God had created me in His image and that He had made everything good. I knew I was on the right path.

I started making some major changes in my life. I decided that I wanted to focus on my relationship with God, live closer to Him, and align my thoughts with Him. I stopped worrying so much about how my life was going to go. I thought about the idea that there was no obstruction to my spiritual growth, and that spiritual growth was the only growth that was going on. This statement from Science and Health brought me a lot of peace and comfort: "What we most need is the prayer of fervent desire for growth in grace, expressed in patience, meekness, love, and good deeds" (p. 4 ). I tried to put each of these qualities into practice each day, and I felt the healing effects in every area of my life.

I started going to church regularly, and I also became more systematic about reading the Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly. I moved back to Minnesota and taught Sunday School there, which I loved. And teaching Sunday School helped me realize that I wasn't happy with my current work, so I decided to get a job doing what I loved to do, which was to teach. I found an adult education program where I could go to school nights and weekends and get the credentials I needed to teach elementary school.

In 1998, I was required to take a medical exam when I changed jobs. I told the nurse who was examining me about the medical diagnosis from two years earlier, but I knew in my heart that the situation had already been healed. Both the nurse and a physician examined me, and they confirmed that there was no evidence of the tumor.

This healing will always be a guidepost for me. I know I can turn to God and trust Him. My relationship to God is now first, above all my human achievements. I realize what a precious privilege it is to rely on God for healing, and I value each opportunity to practice a little more of this healing truth every day. I really feel it is the "pearl of great price" (see Matt. 13:45, 46 ).