Article May 27, 2002 Issue

It's natural to heal others

By Carrie Becker

I'VE LEARNED ABOUT HEALING through prayer by studying the Bible and the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. I'll touch on some of the basic concepts from those books that I've found particularly helpful, but I'd like to begin by describing something that happened about a year ago.

A woman called and asked me to pray with her. She'd been suffering several weeks from hemorrhoids and extremely painful bowel movements. She was almost bedridden due to the pain. I assured her that she was God's child, created in His image—as the likeness of Spirit itself—and that nothing had ever altered that perfect creation.

After our conversation I prayed for inspiration. That's my first step when I treat someone through prayer. It came to me to study what Science and Health says about oil, as that word is used in the Bible. Mary Baker Eddy wrote that oil stands for "consecration; charity; gentleness; prayer; heavenly inspiration" (p. 592). The next time I talked with my patient I asked that we both think about these qualities associated with oil, and as best we could, to put them into practice in our lives. (I realized that I as the "pray-er" had as much to learn from God here as she as the "prayed with.") The following day she called to say some drainage had taken place. I continued to pray—to let God show me how these qualities were part of this woman's spiritual identity, and mine.