Testimony of Healing September 12, 2011 Issue

A ‘resurrection' moment

Evelyn Horn

This past Easter Sunday my husband and I were in Boston, and we attended The Mother Church. The whole service inspired me, but what intrigued me was a phrase in the solo: “Arise from self-made sepulchers!” (The words of the solo were adapted from a poem by Max Dunaway called “Easter Day.”)

That weekend I had been dealing with all the symptoms of a cold, so I asked myself, “What kind of beliefs are keeping me in a self-made sepulcher?” Well, I thought, “How about the health law that calls itself contagion? And what about the law that says I have to suffer for travelling from a warmer climate to a colder one? And the belief that says I’m going to suffer a certain number of days before this cold disappears?” I had also been condemning myself for not bringing along warmer clothing, and for feeling resentful toward the manager of the bed-and-breakfast where we had stayed who said he could only raise the heat “a little.” So I had plenty of work to do to redeem and resurrect my thinking before I could emerge from a self-made sepulcher.

Reasoning that God never made a law called “contagion,” I realized I couldn’t be subject to it as His image and likeness. The only law that governs me is His law of harmony. Neither could I be made to suffer for “extremes in temperature” because I “live, and move, and have [my] being” (Acts 17:28) in God, divine Love. I wasn’t a stupid mortal who didn’t pack the right clothing, but rather, I am a spiritual idea of God having everything I need, including the warmth of Love. And as far as feeling resentful toward the manager of the B&B, I remembered Mary Baker Eddy’s counsel: “The Christian Scientist cherishes no resentment; he knows that that would harm him more than all the malice of his foes.” She continued, “Brethren, even as Jesus forgave, forgive thou” (Message to The Mother Church for 1902, p. 19). So that’s what I did.