PRAYER HEALS GROWTH ON FACE

MARIAN BRUCE

About five years ago, I noticed what seemed to be a small cut on my nose. I thought nothing of it until, after about two weeks, it hadn't healed. In fact, it began to be a kind of scabby growth. While it wasn't particularly noticeable to others, I did have a few comments, meant with loving concern, suggesting that perhaps my childhood in Florida's tropical sun and my long-time love of the sun after I moved north was finally showing its result. I had seen more than one friend experience problems of this sort, resorting to surgery to have the growths removed, and I began to be fearful that this could be the outcome in my case as well.

That's when I decided to call a practitioner to help me through prayer. We prayed for a long time, primarily to recognize what my "body" really was—that it was my spiritual identity, which is not physical at all. I studied Mary Baker Eddy's writings, the Christian Science magazines, and the Bible, and felt I was making a good deal of spiritual progress. However, the physical situation didn't seem to improve, but instead grew slightly worse.

Then, after at least two years of this work, I began to look deeper into ideas related to body, substance, and mental action. I began to see more clearly that there is never a tangible condition called disease that needs to be healed, but that a misconception of reality is all that needs correction. I began to accept more and more that matter is not substance. This passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy became my guide: "Look away from the body into Truth and Love, the Principle of all happiness, harmony, and immortality. Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts" (p. 261).

This was a turning point for me. I persisted in looking "away from the body" and holding my thoughts to a divine standard—the purity and goodness of Love. When I washed my hands, brushed my teeth, or for any reason was in front of the mirror, I made a point not to look at my face. I began to recognize that my consciousness could not harbor deformity, pain, or anything that was not part of the consciousness of Mind, God. There was no power to cause me to think anything that Mind did not think.

After about two weeks, one morning I was washing my face and noticed that the washcloth did not create any uncomfortable sensation on my nose. Knowing that a well material body was not the indicator of my spiritual self, I took my time finishing my bath. But when I went to the mirror to put on makeup, I saw that there was nothing on my nose where the growth had been except for a slightly pink spot of new skin.

I was and continue to be grateful, not so much for the physical healing as for the increased understanding and clear affirmation that we do not reside in a physical body but each of us is always a pure, unblemished expression of Soul.

MARIAN BRUCE
CRYSTAL LAKE, ILLINOIS, US

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