Debilitating pain gone
About a year and a half ago, I found myself in extreme, debilitating pain. Mary Baker Eddy’s provision for church was my support during this time and provided the help and spiritual truth I needed to completely overcome this challenge.
I’ve had many healings in my life as a student of Christian Science, as has my son. These healings included freedom from a painful abscess, stomachaches, influenza, severe illness involving a jaundiced appearance, and many others. I have come to rely on Christian Science for healing and the peace it provides in turning to God; thus, I didn’t consider another approach.
During this particular experience, which ended up lasting for several days, there were times when I could not think clearly because of the pain, and asked a Christian Science practitioner for treatment through prayer. There were moments when the pain abated and I felt a bit better. But when I was unable to sleep or find relief, the practitioner was available at any time to pray with me and for me.
When the aggressive condition continued after a couple of days, the thought came to me that God had already provided me with the support I needed through my preparation of readings from the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, by Mary Baker Eddy, for a church testimony meeting I’d subbed for a few weeks before. My subject had been firmness and resolve, and I held to the fact that this experience was requiring me to be firm, to “stick to the truth of being in contradistinction to the error that life, substance, or intelligence can be in matter” (Science and Health, p. 418 ). Also, it was clear that the pain conformed to mortal mind’s belief that pain could disable life, and since my prayers and those of the practitioner rested on divine Science, and not material belief, I felt assured that these truths would and could overcome the belief of pain and disease.
One recurring thought I had was to wonder what the name was for this condition: Why was I in pain? What was wrong? Should I get a diagnosis? As soon as I verbalized the fear to myself, the answer was there immediately—I realized that I was free to get a diagnosis if I chose to, but a diagnosis could only tell me what mortal mind believed. It could not help me know and be aware of the truth of my being.
That week the Christian Science Bible Lesson was on Sacrament and I prayed to more fully understand what the Lesson was telling me. I wanted to understand the “cup of Christ,” which was emphasized in the Lesson. I found it uplifting to know that I did want to take up the cup, which the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health, tells us is the cross (see p. 35 ). At first I understood this to mean that I was willing to take up the cross, face the material claim of pain and heal it with divine Science, but every day my concept of the meaning of the cup of Christ grew.
I came to realize that the cup is filled with “wine,” which Science and Health tells us is “the inspiration of Love, the draught our Master drank and commended to his followers” (p. 35 ). To me this meant that I needed to love more, and I strove to reject any thoughts that were unloving, unkind, or ungodlike.
At this time there were many changes going on around me—friends moving, loved ones passing on, and I was feeling lonely and as if there were so many changes that I couldn’t continue to be happy. I noticed that the account of Jesus’ ascension in Luke’s Gospel shows that his disciples were joyous, even though he was leaving them (see 24:50 ). I needed to trust that when my friends moved on they would still be taking progressive steps and that I could feel joy at this spiritual fact. I didn’t need to face the future with dread.
Christian Science tells us that through witnessing the crucifixion, resurrection, and ascension, Jesus’ students grew to understand his teachings and this enabled them to heal. I understood that the disciples could rejoice in Jesus’ ascension because they really understood that he was going forward; he didn’t cease to be. Just as Jesus’ disciples could take up the cross as Jesus had done, so could I recognize that God was ever present and available to us at all times, and that no condition could change this fact, cause pain, or bring life to an end.
Each day I felt better, but was still not certain I would be able to read on Sunday at our branch church’s service as I had agreed to do. On Sunday I awoke in some pain, but it was not overwhelming. As is my custom, I read the Bible Lesson through again. I came across Jesus’ question to his disciples, “Can ye drink of the cup that I drink of? and be baptized with the baptism that I am baptized with?” (Mark 10:38 ). This Bible citation was followed by the partial definition of baptism in Science and Health as “submergence in Spirit” (p. 581 ). I thought: Are you willing to “submerge yourself” in Spirit, to see yourself and all as spiritual?
This time, as I thought about the cup and how the disciples drank “all of it” (see Matthew 26:27 ), I felt that the cup represented Jesus’ great love for all. This boundless love came from God, overflowed, and would not allow Jesus to accept disease, pain, impoverishment, death, or any other matter-based claim as part of man. I then understood that at the heart of what the disciples accepted and understood was the concept that they could never be separated from the love of God that motivated and healed.
The last vestige of pain left. I was able to read at church on Sunday and that was also the end of the pain. The healing has been permanent.
Carol Kingstrom Rounds
East Lansing, Michigan, US
