Last year, over a period of several weeks, I began to experience symptoms that provoked a good deal of fear. They were the same symptoms my husband had encountered about a year earlier, which had been medically diagnosed as a heart attack.

I knew it was time for healing. I had experienced Christian Science healing many times before, and turning to prayer was a natural step. I was confident that Christian Science would bring a complete healing, and I felt strongly that the first step was for me to face down the fear that seemed to be consuming my thought, just as David met Goliath head-on.

As I went humbly to my Father-Mother God for comfort and direction, it became quite clear that I had to be focused on "casting down imaginations, and every high thing that exalteth itself against the knowledge of God, and bringing into captivity every thought to the obedience of Christ" (II Cor. 10:5). To help me do this, I called a Christian Science practitioner to support me in prayer. We discussed the idea of reflection—that I reflect God's flawless, perfect nature—and she pointed me to this helpful passage: "To live so as to keep human consciousness in constant relation with the divine, the spiritual, and the eternal, is to individualize infinite power; and this is Christian Science" (Mary Baker Eddy, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 160).

I also made a list of the fears I felt needed to be exposed. They were:

1. Fear of death (I was feeling especially agitated since several friends had passed on unexpectedly in the past year).

2. Fear of thinking Christian Science could not heal.

3. Fear that these symptoms were too great to be healed.

I realized the most important thing I had to do was to see, hear, and feel what God wanted me to see, hear, and feel. Over the next several days, through deeper study of the Christian Science Quarterly Bible Lessons, delving into articles from The Christian Science Journal and the Sentinel, and discussions with the practitioner, I clung to the fact that I wanted to, I needed to, it was my right to, recognize my unbroken relationship with Life itself.

One of the main ideas I came to understand from this prayer and spiritual study was that when praying about a physical condition, I needed to know that no one could ever have that condition. In other words, the truth about my spiritual perfection is also applicable to everyone else. We have life because we reflect God, not because of the action of our heart or lungs. We have intelligence because we are expressions of God as Mind, not because of our brains. We manifest one infinite God, and as Christ's manifestation, we are a full reflection of this God. It dawned on me that I didn't have to be afraid of death, because God is infinite Life, and I could recognize and affirm the continuity of this Life and my direct relationship to it.

The breakthrough for me came in a very simple concept from that week's Bible Lesson on the subject of "God." As I read, I suddenly saw that God is expressing Himself through us—God is expressed through me!

What a relief I felt. I did not have to struggle to try to please God. I did not have to suffer, or work hard to find just the right line from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy to find healing. I just had to let God express Himself through me. God was doing it all, caring for and protecting every aspect of His creation—and oh, so perfectly.

With this clear insight, the sense of burden lifted immediately. Within the next day or two, the physical symptoms disappeared completely, and the fears I had been struggling with vanished as well. I was totally free.

It's been more than a year now, and since then I have moved a household of furniture, gone on long and fast walks, and never experienced any difficulties.

ANN BLAMEY
FOND DU LAC, WISCONSIN, US