Testimony of Healing June 14, 2004 Issue

Spiritual learning—natural and painless

Mary Townsager

A healing that I'm very grateful for occurred one winter when I was an assistant teacher in a private school. I was on my feet quite a bit during the day, and at the same time was juggling home duties as well as bookkeeping for a family-owned business. Every morning for a period of several months, a persistent internal pain made it impossible for me to sit comfortably, dress easily, or take care of household chores with normal flexibility. I was able to study the Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly only by standing at the bedroom window and propping up the Bible and Science and Health on the window sill. Although I prayed diligently for a healing and worked daily with a Christian Science practitioner, the discomfort only seemed to intensify.

While I was studying the Lesson one morning, a verse about Jesus from the Bible caught my attention: "And early in the morning he came again into the temple, and all the people came unto him; and he sat down, and taught them" (John 8:2). I wanted to be like those people who came early in the morning and received spiritual instruction. As I thought about this, I saw that learning more about God and His creation was something I could always do. I could expect it to be natural and painless to "sit down and be taught" more of the truth. This was a comforting expectation.

Toward the end of January, the practitioner had to go on a short trip and felt that she would not be able to devote appropriate time to help while she was away. I decided to pray on my own for that week. Before getting out of bed each morning, I prayed for myself and listened for specific enlightenment about the perfect spiritual identity God had given me. One statement that became central to my prayer was, "Being is holiness, harmony, immortality" (Science and Health, p. 492:). I made it a goal to think of verses from the Bible that would corroborate each of those three aspects of true existence. It dawned on me that these three major ideas were like three coordinates, if you will, which constituted my spiritual address—where I live, move, and have my being, to echo St. Paul's words (see Acts 17:28). I saw that this address—not a geographical location or a physical body vulnerable to pain—was my permanent home. I could never be evicted from it.

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