Testimony of Healing October 4, 2010 Issue

SYMPTOMS OF PNEUMONIA HEALED

DOUG SYTSMA

Before becoming a student of Christian Science, I suffered from pneumonia and respiratory problems. I sought medical means for a cure, and it took several months to find relief. Because of the severity of the case, the attending physician predicted that the disease would return to bother me at a later time.

At the beginning of this past year, when I was on a skiing vacation in Telluride, Colorado, the same symptoms did indeed recur. By this time, I understood how Christian Science treatment works. I'd describe treatment as a mental prayer whereby you arrive at the real, spiritual sense of the patient's being, whether you are treating yourself or someone else. So I decided to give myself Christian Science treatment, and then to contact a Christian Science practitioner for additional prayerful help, instead of seeking a medical cure.

I decided to truly witness what was going on spiritually. Because I seemed to be impressed with the symptoms, I knew I would need to mentally address these suggestions about my condition through prayerful protests, so that they no longer disturbed me. I'd come to see that Science and Health depicts this mental handling of the material senses' report as a kind of strong "Michael angel" form of treatment. Then, once thought is no longer disturbed, it's free to rise to the spiritual sense of being and turn to a kind of "Gabriel angel" form of treatment (see Science and Health, pp. 566–567), where the pure recognition of Love, the spiritual sense of being, heals.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

GROWTH HEALED THROUGH PRAYER