Testimony of Healing June 16, 2008 Issue

GRATEFUL FOR MANY HEALINGS

Originally published in El Heraldo de la Ciencia Cristiana

AZUCENA SEVESO DE RISO

I taught music education in elementary and secondary school for many years, until I decided it was time to leave my job. Not long after, my jaw became dislocated and caused me a lot of pain. As a Christian Scientist, I began to pray for healing of this situation. However, some months went by, and I continued to have problems with my jaw, until one day it occurred to me that I should take a look at what might be out of place in my life. I realized that after I'd stopped teaching, I missed having a regular daily activity. As I kept praying, the following Bible verse came to my thought: "Behold, I send an Angel before thee, to keep thee in the way, and to bring thee into the place which I have prepared" (Ex. 23:20).

I'd been studying Christian Science for a long time and helping my friends and family through prayer whenever they requested it. Then one day, after praying and trusting in God to guide me, I felt impelled to become a full-time Christian Science practitioner and dedicate myself to spiritual healing. When I started the application process, the issue with my jaw disappeared. It was completely healed. This healing confirmed for me once again that health and well-being don't have any basis in the body, but rather in thought.

Some years later, when I was a Reader in my branch Church of Christ, Scientist, I was suffering from what I thought were the symptoms of colitis. I would not eat for at least 12 hours before fulfilling my Reader's responsibilities in church, for fear of having a bad experience. My physical appearance changed a lot, and I became concerned. In my prayer every day I studied the definition of man—which applies to both men and women—from Science and Health: "Man is idea, the image, of Love; he is not physique" (p. 475). At one point I attended a Christian Science lecture, and the lecturer emphasized that we are not "biological beings," but spiritual in nature. It was as if a light had gone on. I saw that I, too, was not, and in fact nobody is, biologically made. Instead, our identity is spiritual; it's "the compound idea of God, including all right ideas" (Science and Health, p. 475).