Testimony of Healing May 6, 2002 Issue

Smoke-free

Original in Portuguese

Thereza M. L. Giannattasio

I used to smoke a lot. Everything I did was done with a cigarette between my fingers. At one point I was smoking up to four packs a day. I fooled myself by saying that, since I didn't inhale, this was not a very serious habit.

I had been studying Christian Science for a while, and it was helping me in many ways. I began to want to free myself from this slavery to cigarettes because I saw that addiction was not compatible with the kind of prayer that would lead me to freedom and independence. At first I tried to quit through will-power, but I actually ended up smoking more.

Little by little I began to realize that in working toward this goal, I would have to rely on God's power, not on my own. Even more than before, I would have to spiritualize the way I thought about things. That meant I would have to accept the fact that my individuality was spiritual and could not be imprisoned by an addiction.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

They parted friends