THE CHOICE TO RELY completely on God for physical healing through Christian Science prayer treatment can raise questions. Is an entirely spiritual approach sufficient to address the physical aspects of a case? Wouldn't a more comprehensive approach sometimes include dealing with a problem both spiritually and medically?

When faced with a serious or life-threatening condition, it's perfectly natural to expect the best-available treatment—one that would produce a healing outcome. And I had to consider these exact questions, when in 2001 I found a lump in my breast.

Both my mother and my aunt had had breast cancer diagnoses. Now I was afraid I had cancer. Aware of the variety of treatment options available, including both conventional medical and spiritually based approaches, I wanted to make my choice grounded on rational thinking and not merely in reaction to fear.

I wasn't new to spiritual healing. Prior experience had shown me that the type of prayer that opens thinking to the presence of the Christ, the healing power of God, is the most direct and effective way to silence fear and destroy disease. Over three decades, I'd had quick healings of broken bones, sprains, pneumonia, and a variety of minor ailments. I was also aware of others who had been healed spiritually of life-threatening conditions, and this knowledge certainly factored into my choice.

But my final decision to have treatment through prayer sprang from something deeper than human confidence in a system of healing. This condition had brought to the surface a fundamental question about my identity: "Who and what am I?" Intuition told me that this was the underlying element I needed to address—something that couldn't be accomplished medically. I couldn't see how a medical approach, treating me as if my only actual substance were material, would address this root concern of knowing myself spiritually.

To address my initial, overwhelming fear, I decided to call a Christian Science practitioner for help through prayer. Within just a day or two of my own praying with her support, I felt calmer and decided I could pray for myself on my own again. It was at this point that I made the decision to rely exclusively on Christian Science treatment for the physical healing.

For several months, I studied Science and Health to understand the spiritual nature of man (both men and women) as created perfectly by the divine Parent, God. I didn't ignore the physical aspects of the case, but I did gauge my progress by looking at my mental state more than the physical, in determining whether I needed extra prayerful help. When fear or aggressive symptoms impeded my study or prayer, I would call a practitioner until I regained confidence to pray for myself. The most important thing to me was progress in understanding my spiritual identity, and I expected to make headway each day. If I felt in no condition to pray effectively, I made sure someone else was.

As I studied Christian Science, I asked many questions. The most persistent was, "If I am truly spiritual, which implies eternality, why don't I remember where I was before I was born?" This pointed to an even more fundamental inquiry, "Where did I come from, and who am I?"

I considered three possible answers to these questions:

1) I am the daughter of my mother, who is the daughter of her mother, and so on, tracing back to Eve. This I considered could be the "original sin" track of existence. Accepting this premise would lead to the justification of disease as the product of sin (mine or others'), and point to ultimate death.

2) I am the daughter of my mother, who is the daughter of her mother, and so on, tracing back to a tiny organism found in the primordial seas. This I knew is based on the Darwinian theory of existence. Hereditary theory traces the cancer gene through multiple generations, so such a line also promises disease and death.

3) I am the daughter of God, the expression of infinite Life, and have always existed at the point of perfection, coexistent with all of God's perfect creation—including my mother and her mother, and so on.

This last answer relates precisely to something written by Mary Baker Eddy that I came across as I studied the chapter "Creation" in Science and Health: "The offspring of God start not from matter or ephemeral dust. They are in and of Spirit, divine Mind, and so forever continue." She then concluded: "The great I am made all 'that was made.' Hence man and the spiritual universe coexist with God" (p. 267). Here was exactly the point I was learning to accept—that I was conceived of spiritually, never materially. I began to see that this was the track of existence I was most interested in, and I felt it also represented the only path to healing.

While this third viewpoint concerning my eternal nature was becoming clearer to me, I still questioned why I couldn't remember my spiritual origin. The chapter "Creation" in Science and Health opens with this statement: "In league with material sense, mortals take limited views of all things" (p. 255). I noticed how Mrs. Eddy explained this point further on: "When we learn the way in Christian Science and recognize man's spiritual being, we shall behold and understand God's creation,—all the glories of earth and heaven and man" (p. 264). I also considered Christ Jesus' words, "Before Abraham was, I am" (John 8:58). And I thought about his experience of standing with Elias and Moses on the Mount of Transfiguration, witnessed by James and John (see Mark 9:2–4). Mortal timelines of birth and death would render Jesus' statement, as well as that physical event, impossible. Yet his understanding of God's creation and his recognition of man's spiritual being permitted him to remember his eternal existence and to prove it by meeting Moses and Elias centuries after it was considered humanly possible.

As I dug deeper into the true nature of my being, I began to feel a mental shift. Moving in step with the eternal sense of man's spiritual being, as always existing in God, I realized that I, too, have always existed. Those words of Jesus became as tangible to me as my own memory: "Before Abraham was, I am, too!" In "Creation," I found the words to express what I now remembered of my past: "Man is the idea of Spirit; he reflects the beatific presence, illuming the universe with light. Man is deathless, spiritual. He is above sin or frailty. He does not cross the barriers of time into the vast forever of Life, but he coexists with God and the universe" (Science and Health, p. 266).

Five months into this prayerful treatment, I still wasn't doing great physically—I was dealing with a lot of pain. But nevertheless, there was still significant progress. That insight into my spiritual history, my preexistence as a child of God, had wiped out the intense waves of fear I'd been experiencing. And I realized that when the fear left, the physical symptoms didn't draw my attention as much. In fact, they didn't scare me anymore, and I no longer felt I was going to die.

Next, a long forgotten event suddenly confronted my memory. I had once reacted with revenge to another individual's harsh treatment of someone I loved. Suddenly I realized how wrong my reaction had been. At the time of this realization, I went through an emotional meltdown, crushed by the remembrance of my own cruelty. But within a matter of moments, all self-justification for my actions washed away, as I acknowledged the need for healing.

Over the next month, I prayed to heal the guilt and underlying anger. During this time, I was so intent on finding freedom from the guilt that I hardly noticed the pain or other troubling symptoms. Again, Science and Health offered significant insight: "A wicked mortal is not the idea of God. He is little else than the expression of error. To suppose that sin, lust, hatred, envy, hypocrisy, revenge, have life abiding in them, is a terrible mistake. Life and Life's idea,Truth and Truth's idea, never make men sick, sinful, or mortal" (p. 289). I didn't have to give my life over to a terrible mistake. The anger and guilt had no self-sustaining life, and I wanted to stop feeding them. I had already seen how opening oneself to spiritual history, as opposed to the material record of being born to a human mother, releases from the penalty of mortal fears. This made it easier to yield now to the spiritual fact—that Life's idea, man, is sinless—not guilty—and therefore the mortal record of conflict and cruelty are not fixed and life-defining.

I was able to move on, release myself from the errors of the past, and forgive. And as it turned out, this spiritual growth preceded the final disappearance of all traces of the disease. I awoke one morning to find no pain, and realized that the lump in my breast was gone. In all, the healing was complete within six months of my starting Christian Science treatment. And the condition has never returned.

So, why choose to rely radically and wholeheartedly on God through prayer when a physical condition may be potentially dangerous? Why wouldn't I have preferred to mix the two approaches to cover all bases? As I pursued spiritual healing, I shifted from a material focus on disease to an intense desire to know myself as God knows me. Then I found the eternal facts of my present wholeness coming to light. Ultimately, it is the revelation of who we are spiritually that uncovers and eliminates the darkness of fear, disease, sin, while a distracting preoccupation about and exploration of matter only delays or impedes progress.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote, "There is but one way—namely, God and His idea—which leads to spiritual being" (Science and Health, p. 167). Understanding our relation to God reveals the perfection of our existence for eternity. This revelation heals and saves. css