Growth on head healed
One morning more than ten years ago, while my wife was cutting my hair, she touched something on the side of my head and said, “That needs to be removed.” I knew she must be referring to some kind of growth, and we both knew that I would take metaphysical action to address the situation in prayer. Though we did not discuss it, I started immediately to mentally deny the false evidence of a growth.
I prayed regularly and faithfully for several months, refusing to accept what I knew to be a lie, but with no change in the condition. Finally I decided to call a Christian Science practitioner. I opened a copy of The Christian Science Journal and, after reaching out in prayer, I selected a name and called. I feel now that I was divinely directed to that name.
When the practitioner and I first started talking, I told him I was frustrated about the months of no apparent progress. I began listing the things I had been doing: “I read the Christian Science Bible Lesson daily; I go to church; I don’t take medicine ...” He responded, “That’s good; that should continue.” Then, at the height of frustration, I said, “But this thing hasn’t yielded!” Immediately he countered: “No! It can’t yield. It’s non-intelligent, inert. You have to yield!”
There was silence on the phone line as his words sank in. I suddenly realized that I shared something in common with the man at the Pool of Bethesda, whom Jesus had healed 2,000 years ago (see John 5:2–9 ): We had both been waiting to have matter do something, as though it were intelligent, as though it—matter—were in charge.
What the practitioner’s statement made me see was that matter didn’t have to yield; I did! He added that I did not need to inspect, touch, or look at the false evidence.
So, as the practitioner started praying for me, I started to learn what “yielding” was all about—not yielding to matter but to God, Mind. I found the following definitions of yield: “To act in accordance with another’s command, request, rule, or wish,” “To surrender or submit (oneself) to another,” and “to give up and cease resistance or contention.”
I began learning about yielding to Truth, and applying what I had learned. Given the symptom I was facing, I also prayed to overcome all fear of and belief in the word cancer. I saw such a claim to be not only mindless and thoughtless but also unconscious—therefore impotent and actually harmless. My trust in God grew, and so did my gratitude. In the Bible, I read this familiar verse: “Know ye not, that to whom ye yield yourselves servants to obey, his servants ye are to whom ye obey; whether of sin unto death, or of obedience unto righteousness?” (Romans 6:16 ).
Finally, the day came when I no longer feared or believed in the growth on the side of my head. Standing before the bathroom mirror, I tilted my head sideways and, for the first time, parted my hair and looked directly at what before I had so feared. I really understood that this so-called growth was unintelligent, disorganized, and powerless. I had been afraid of this? I rebuked the picture out loud, verbally affirming to myself that I was purely spiritual, then simply walked away.
Two days later as I was combing my hair, the growth fell off into the sink, leaving smooth skin behind. It was gone, and has not returned. I had yielded to Truth and won.
Donald R. Gregory
Buffalo, Wyoming, US
