Testimony of Healing June 5, 2006 Issue

GRATITUDE PRECEDES HEALING

ACE VAN HORNE

For over ten years, I had a lump on my back. At first it gradually increased in size, then just remained unchanged. There was no sensation or discomfort, although it did restrict my activities—I was selfconscious having anyone seeing it, so I didn't take part in activities where it would have been visible to anyone.

This condition worried me, and I prayed about it as I had learned to do in Christian Science. But there was no evidence of progress.

Then the lump suddenly started causing me a great deal of discomfort, as well as giving off an unpleasant odor. I became very fearful and contacted a Christian Science practitioner for treatment through prayer. We talked each day, and at some point in each conversation, she asked me to "rejoice." The first couple of times, I just let her request slide by without responding. But when I realized that this was going to be a recurring theme, I decided that, in all honesty, I just had to tell the practitioner that I was really finding it impossible to rejoice. She reassured me with the idea that expressing gratitude is a first step to healing and often precedes it.

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