When I was a child, I had asthma. I wasn't able to join in all the activities that most kids were involved in, and during this time, my parents took me to doctors, who did everything they could to help me. But the asthma continued. So through my childhood, I was going to a doctor quite regularly and also going to a Christian Science Sunday School. The condition kept persisting.

When I was about 12, a teacher in Sunday School taught me the meaning of "primal cause." There's a sentence in Science and Health that says, "There is but one primal cause" (p.207). I understood that this cause was God and that there wasn't a cause from some outside influence that could make me be disturbed, harmed, or influenced in a way that was detrimental to my well-being. With that idea, I started praying for myself, and I was able to gain a sense of peace many times when I felt an asthma attack coming on.

When I went away to college, I decided I had nothing to lose by trying to rely totally on God for healing. I hadn't been healed by taking medicine through the years. And I was trusting God more and losing my faith that medicine could help me.

After I made the decision to give up taking any kind of medicine, I returned home for the summer from college, and one night I had an asthma attack. I began praying, and I read a Bible Lesson for that week, which consisted of citations from the Bible and from Science and Health.

I struggled all night long to gain a clearer sense of God and my relationship with Him, and to know that He was a good God and that I had a good relationship with Him.

Around 4:00 in the morning, I was so weak that I had to call my mother to help me. She very lovingly asked me, "When did this start?"—because I was never to let myself get this weak. It was a motherly, loving chiding that she was giving me.

But I never answered. The following ideas just flashed through my mind: "This [the asthma] didn't start last night. It didn't start when I was a small child. It didn't start at the point of conception. And it didn't start someplace along the genealogical line with my ancestors." And right on the tails of that thought, a verse from the Bible came to me: "In the beginning, God created the heaven and the earth ... And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good" (Gen. 1:1, 31).

I knew that since asthma isn't "very good," it couldn't be God-created. Therefore, it couldn't have a beginning. I immediately felt a whole lot better, although I was still laboring for breath. I asked my mother to read to me from the chapter "Christian Science Practice" in Science and Health. And after she read awhile, I asked her to fix my breakfast for me while I got dressed. I ate most of my breakfast, which was unusual when I was in that condition, and then I asked her to drive me to work.

It was my first day on the job. And on the way to work, my mother told me I could call a Christian Science practitioner to pray with me, if I wanted to. But I said to her, "I will be all right."

Immediately, the thought came to me, "I am all right." And then two familiar statements, which helped a lot. One was, "Divine Love always has met and always will meet every human need." Also "God gives you His spiritual ideas, and in turn, they give you daily supplies" (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health, p. 494: Miscellaneous Writings, p. 307).

I said to God, "I need strength for today, and I know you're going to give me the spiritual ideas for the strength I need." We drove on to work. At the factory, as I jumped out of the car, my mother said, "Nobody would ever know you're having a hard time breathing."

At first, I was startled, because I was totally free. I actually had forgotten the night of suffering. There was absolutely no recuperative period. I went in and worked eight hours at that job, then went home, had dinner, and worked another six hours at a night job.

Since then, I haven't been bothered by asthma. The healing's been permanent. Now I participate in sports and other activities that require vigorous physical activity—things that I never did as a child. I'm just so grateful for this healing, and for the effect of God's power in my life.

David Reed
Natick, Massachusetts

Excerpted from Sentinel Radio