Testimony of Healing February 16, 2004 Issue

A clear understanding of God's laws brings healing

Marcia Hufstader

On a Sunday morning a couple of weeks before Christmas, my throat started feeling sore. I thought of the widespread reports of influenza that had recently been circulating, predicting a severe flu season.

When my throat began to feel abnormal, I started watching my thoughts more closely—as a means of praying for myself. Every time the soreness tried to grab my attention, I turned to think of God, my Father-Mother, as the caretaker of all His-Her children. I asked myself if I really believed that God was in control of my life and that God's laws were supreme. If God was in control, I reasoned, then laws of divine harmony and health were governing me because I was God's child. I was under those laws—they maintained my well-being, and they had jurisdiction over my physical condition right at that moment.

Because I like to reason in mathematical terms, I thought about how the effect of understanding even a simple rule in arithmetic has a practical application in daily life, whether it involves adding up a grocery bill or building a house. I knew deep down that this was true about understanding the nature, the rule, of God's love for me. Integral to my thought process was a line from the Lord's Prayer that says, "Thy will be done in earth, as it is in heaven" (Matt. 6:10). That was it! A message to me that I could see and experience God's goodwill right there, right then. This was perceiving the harmony of heaven on earth. The spiritual interpretation of that Bible verse, which Mary Baker Eddy gave in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, brought me further inspiration: "Enable us to know,—as in heaven, so on earth,—God is omnipotent, supreme" (p.17). I had a longing to know, to understand, to really see, that the power of God was the only power in control—not in some far-off, illusive spiritual realm, but right where I was. I could expect to see the evidence of God's laws at work through my prayer. I saw that there was really no difference between expecting to see proof of God's control and expecting to see the results of applying a mathematical law.