Article July 4, 2011 Issue

Never separated from God

By Marie-Luise Bolay

A little over ten years ago I suddenly began to experience intense back pain, as well as difficulty with digestion. As I’d had some quick and beautiful healings of this problem before I thought: “Well, you’ll be able to share your healing at church next Wednesday.” But there was no quick healing. 

I began to pray, and as I did, it came to me that I was not relying on my limited spiritual understanding for healing, but that I should commit myself trustingly to God: “Thy will be done, Father.” I remembered how Mary Baker Eddy explained an exclamation of Jesus’ in Gethsemane, before his crucifixion—“Not my will, but Thine, be done!” She saw this as saying, “. . . Let not the flesh, but the Spirit, be represented in me.” And she continued: “This is the new understanding of spiritual Love. It gives all for Christ, or Truth. It blesses its enemies, heals the sick, casts out error, raises the dead from trespasses and sins, and preaches the gospel to the poor, the meek in heart” (Science and Health, p. 33).

That gave me a lot to think about. It was my wish that my spiritual being should become clear mentally, and that this wholeness would be expressed outwardly in healing. Flesh I interpreted as ignorance, fear, mental darkness. The passage also said I had to give up everything for Christ, or Truth, in order that God’s will could be clearly seen. What did I have to give up? Belief in a power apart from God. Doubt. Idleness. Christ is God’s message to man, and this message is Truth. What message does Christ bring us? Wonderful spiritual ideas: