I'd always trusted prayer in Christian Science for healings of all sorts. Growing up, I experienced healings of childhood diseases, colds, a breathing problem, burns, and more. But one healing I had as an adult thoroughly convinced me of the powerlessness of matter.

After the birth of my first child, I experienced vaginal discomfort and swelling off and on for years. The condition was more annoying than painful, but each time it flared up, I would diligently pray about it, and the symptoms would disappear.

In my prayers, I acknowledged God's direction in my life and listened for His guidance. This beloved verse from Proverbs was especially helpful: "Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding" (3:5). "The scientific statement of being," found in Science and Health, also shepherded my prayers. It begins: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all" (p. 468).

Each time I prayed about this, I gained a deeper understanding of my relationship to God as His loved, comforted, and protected child. Although I always expected total healing, it seemed that once a year I would have to pray about the discomfort until within a very short time it disappeared.

But at one point when my daughter was grown, the condition returned—and this time with more severity. I was overcome with fear. A painful lump had started to develop, and for the first time I wondered if I should get a physician's opinion and have it surgically removed. This startled me because I had never before doubted the effectiveness of prayer.

I decided to call a dear friend who had devoted her life to the healing ministry of Christian Science. I poured out my fears, and she quietly listened. When I was finished, the only thing she commented on was my mention of a troublesome scar left from my first child's birth some 25 years previous. She remarked to me, "Error has no history." That really caught my attention. And as I thought about it, I realized that there was a lot of truth in her comment. Because this condition was not good, it was not real to God; therefore, it was erroneous and always had been.

My friend agreed to pray with me, and I immediately felt secure in her loving direction and assurance of God's supreme care for me. For the first time, I saw how untrue it was for me to have believed, as I had, that this scarring was part of my identity. What a relief that this was finally uncovered!

I prayed diligently after I had spoken with my friend, studying the weekly Christian Science Bible Lesson and working with this powerful declaration from Science and Health: "A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive" (p. 463). I clung to this all day—and I saw it as God's law, applying directly to my case. I began to grasp that as a spiritual idea, perfect and whole, I could never include anything offensive, or unlike God—nor could I even have a memory of it.

The following morning, I awoke completely free from the pain. The lump had disappeared. And — to my great surprise—the scar tissue that had been there for 25 years had also vanished.

Mrs. Eddy wrote: "The enslavement of man is not legitimate. It will cease when man enters into his heritage of freedom, his God-given dominion over the material senses" (ibid., p. 228). I believe that is exactly what happened to me. I had found my freedom and dominion over the claim that something totally unlike God could ever have had an existence or a history. I was completely healed, and the condition has never returned in the years since.

I just love this Science of the Christ.

ELLEN ALLEN
TRAVERSE CITY, MICHIGAN, US