Unexpected healing

Rodney Westfall

When one of my sisters was ill, my wife encouraged me to ask a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me because I was concerned for my sister's well being. Reading the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, and talking with the practitioner about God was very helpful in calming me.

My smoking habit died for all time.

When the day came for me to leave Bakersfield, California, where I'd been visiting, and return to my work in Walnut Creek, I met with the practitioner for one last discussion. She talked at length about the all-inclusive nature of the First Commandment, "Thou shalt have no other gods before me" (Ex. 20:3). She said this goes far beyond not worshiping some heathen idol; whatever we give power to in our thinking is in effect our God.

I had made no mention of my smoking habit (six cigars plus a pipe each day). I wasn't trying to stop smoking nor was I interested in trying to do so.

As I headed toward home, I thought about how our last talk had opened up whole new vistas for me. I reached in my jacket pocket for a cigar and found that I was out of them. Then I stuffed my pipe full of tobacco, rolled down the car window — and threw the pipe out onto the highway right-of-way! My smoking habit died for all time with that strange act.

I was an engineer on a large construction project. My boss, a heavy cigar smoker, would visit the job site every week or so. We had always begun our discussions by seeing who could offer the other a free cigar first. He was amazed when I turned down his offer, and asked me how I had broken the habit. Not feeling competent to discuss the spiritual aspects of the healing, I simply said "I just forgot about it."

When the project was complete, I was hired as a civil engineer for a nuclear research facility. My former boss started his own construction firm.

One day I was returning to my office in the administration building, and met my former boss in the lobby. We talked about what we had been doing in the three years since we last met. Then I turned to continue on to my office.

He called me back and asked if I remembered the time he'd asked me how I'd given up smoking, and how I had said "I just forgot about it." Then he told me he hadn't smoked since.

No wonder the author of Science and Health said: "The First Commandment is my favorite text. It demonstrates Christian Science" (p. 340).

Rodney Westfall
Columbia, California

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