Article March 7, 2011 Issue

Who says you have to be sick?

By Bettyjo Cost

Before I took up the study of Christian Science in the early 1960s, I was a patient at UCLA Medical Center. After X-rays and an examination, the doctors told me that because of my having a history of tuberculosis, a cold could become fatal for me. Except for the memory of a very bad cough at the age of 12, I had no knowledge that I’d ever had such a condition. 

Later, through my study of Christian Science, I learned that even when a history of illness or turmoil presents itself or persists, it must fall because it is unjust—it has no spiritual foundation behind it. God is just, a loving Father and Mother to His/Her creation. It simply isn’t in divine Love’s nature to inflict suffering, and it isn’t included in God’s intent for us. In fact, there isn’t a label that can be put on you that God’s love can’t remove. 

Recently, when I completed my study of the Christian Science Bible Lesson one morning, I recalled the doctors’ warning. I had been dealing with symptoms of bronchitis and believed my current condition was really due to that earlier illness. I called a Christian Science practitioner for prayerful support, telling her of the doctors’ warning and my past. She listened and immediately gave me some powerful spiritual truths to work with. One was: “Don’t identify with suffering beliefs!” A second was: “What never was, cannot return.”