During my first years as a student of Christian Science, I studied Science and Health from cover to cover. It was like "a fountain of living waters" (Jer. 2:13) for me. I had been raised in another denomination, and had always loved the accounts of healing in the Bible, and wanted to understand how they occurred. But my questions had never been answered—until I found this Science. The spiritual truths contained in Science and Health, and explored in the weekly Christian Science Bible Lessons, gave me a solid foundation on which to grow in my understanding of the laws of God and how to put them into practice.

At that time, our family was living in Anaco, Venezuela, where my husband worked for a US oil company. One day, on one of his many trips between Anaco and Caracas, he called and asked me to pray for him—he was scheduled to attend a meeting with government officials, but felt so ill that he doubted he would be able to go.

Immediately, a verse from the book of Daniel in the Bible came to my thought: "as before him innocency was found . . ." (6:22). (The entire quote, referring to Daniel's protection from lions, says, "My God hath sent his angel, and hath shut the lions' mouths, that they have not hurt me: forasmuch as before him innocency was found in me.") I knew that my husband's "innocency"—his God-given freedom from fear and sickness—was a present, established fact of his being. God had taken care of that, and nothing could reverse it. No suggestion of ill health, arising from the notion that our substance is material, can dictate its false conclusions or take over our thinking.

I turned to that week's Bible Lesson for further guidance and inspiration. Soon, I felt completely uplifted with the assurance that God was with my husband and in complete control of his wellbeing. I wanted to call him and check to see that he was all right, but instead I held to the spiritual fact that he was all right, not separated for a moment from God's all-loving care.

Within the hour, my husband called, wanting to know what had happened. He said he had never felt better. It was a wonderful moment of joy and gratitude for both of us. For me, it was an awakening to the idea in Science and Health that "the true understanding of God is spiritual" (p. 275), and that it is this understanding that enables restoration and healing. For my husband, who was not yet studying Christian Science, it was a steppingstone to seeing how the power of God operates—a proof that the Christ, Truth, heals here and now, and is active and ever present. From that point on, my husband began attending Christian Science services with me, and gradually took up his own study of the religion.

On another occasion, when I had just been elected to serve as Second Reader in our branch church, I found the day before the Sunday service that my voice was so hoarse it was barely audible. This condition just came up out of the blue. I began to pray for healing, and again turned to the Bible Lesson with the expectation that God would reveal to me what I needed to understand.

That afternoon, I met the First Reader for our practice session, and asked her if she would help me pray about my voice. Without hesitating, she said, "That is covered in the Lesson." She was referring to a statement in Science and Health—one that I hadn't applied to my situation: "There is nothing in Spirit out of which matter could be made, for, as the Bible declares, without the Logos, the Æon or Word of God, 'was not anything made that was made'" (p. 335).

Later, when I had an opportunity to study and pray with this passage, I saw that it affirmed that the substance of my existence was uniquely spiritual (as noted in the marginal heading of the paragraph in which the passage appears)—in other words, my capacities didn't depend on physical conditions, faculties, or qualities, but on Spirit, God, alone. Furthermore, there was nothing in Spirit out of which an abnormal material condition could be made, What I was experiencing in terms of physical limitation was not created by God, and therefore, had no actual existence.

I rejoiced in the power of these truths, and in the way they affirmed my spiritual wholeness. Soon I was able to speak normally. The next morning I was at my reading post with a perfect voice.

Our family has been blessed in countless ways by the spiritual ideas explained in Christian Science. There have been healings of stroke, blindness, bone dislocation, and academic challenges, among many others. Every day we pray to learn and practice more of this healing truth.

DORSIE WALLACE
ABILENE, TEXAS, US