Testimony of Healing October 3, 2005 Issue

HEALED QUICKLY THROUGH GOD-DIRECTED PRAYER

BECKY FAHRNER

One recent morning when I looked in the bathroom mirror, I found that my face was a little puffy. As a Christian Scientist, I'm used to looking at myself as a spiritual being. And I knew that the physical condition I was seeing in the mirror was not the truth about my pure spiritual selfhood. With little concern, I dismissed the condition and went to work.

However, the next morning the swelling had become worse. I could see that I needed to pray more earnestly for myself, and I was now feeling very fearful. I didn't know where to begin my prayer, so I turned wholeheartedly to God. With my heart throbbing, I asked Him to direct my prayer—and I waited, and listened.

I know by heart many beautiful truths from the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, but I refrained from just repeating them at random, "as one that beateth the air" (I Cor. 9:26). Jesus instructed us in the book of Matthew: "When ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking. Be not ye therefore like unto them: for your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him" (6:7,8). As I continued to listen, trusting that God would supply the answer I needed, the thought, or angel message, came in words from Science and Health: "Hatred inflames the brutal propensities" (p. 405). This I knew would never have been in my repertoier of "vain repetitions"! But how did this apply to my situation?