A Sunday School lesson and healing
When I was 13, I began to attend a Christian Science Sunday School. On my first day, the teacher asked a question and I was so pleased to know the answer. We had just read the account of Jacob’s struggles the night before he was to meet Esau on his return home. Esau had vowed to kill Jacob because Jacob had tricked their father into giving him the blessing instead of Esau (see Genesis 32).
The teacher’s question was “Who was Jacob struggling with?” Of course, I knew the answer because we had just read it in the Bible and it said plainly that Jacob struggled with a man. I was quite surprised (and a bit chagrined) when the teacher said, “No,” and then she told how Jacob’s struggle is further explained by Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures. Mrs. Eddy points out that “Jacob was alone, wrestling with error,—struggling with a mortal sense of life, substance, and intelligence as existent in matter with its false pleasures and pains,—when an angel, a message from Truth and Love, appeared to him and smote the sinew, or strength, of his error, till he saw its unreality; and Truth, being thereby understood, gave him spiritual strength in this Peniel of divine Science” (p. 308 ).
I’ve always been grateful for this lesson, which showed the need to get the spiritual sense of the Bible instead of just its literal interpretation. Many years later, this particular Bible account brought a much-needed healing.
Our family, which included our four children, was living in Florida, right on Tampa Bay, and the children practically lived in the water. They could walk right into the Bay from our back door. They were all good swimmers, so it was a fun time for them. However, at one point, one of them developed a sore on his leg. It required bandaging and needed to be kept clean and dry. Although we did not get it diagnosed, it appeared to be some kind of infection.
It’s important to mention that my son wasn’t in pain, but the condition did worry me. Every time I had to change the bandage, I felt afraid. I had contacted a Christian Science practitioner right away to pray with me. We were in touch on a daily basis, sometimes more than once a day. I can never express enough gratitude for the help of this dear practitioner—for her steadfast love and support. Every time we spoke, she assured me of God’s omnipresence, of God as Love. And even though there was fear to be conquered, I knew what the practitioner was sharing with me was true and that I could trust it.
One evening, when a wave of fear swept over me that just reduced me to tears, I was literally down on my knees in the bedroom. From that position, I could hear the family in another room watching TV, and there were peals of happy laughter. As I listened, the thought came to me: “Here I am and they’re all having a good time, completely oblivious to what is going on!” And then, at that moment, these words came to me: “Why shouldn’t they be having a good time? This has nothing to do with them. You’re dealing with your own thought.”
Then it came to me so clearly that this must have been what Jacob had experienced on his way back to face Esau. And just as in Jacob’s experience, I felt that the angel had touched the strength, or “sinew,” of the belief confronting me and its unreality had become apparent. It was clear then that whatever we seem to be struggling with, it is what Jacob struggled with: “a mortal sense of life, substance, and intelligence as existent in matter.”
With the realization that it wasn’t something “out there” that I had to contend with, I saw I could prayerfully address what was coming to my own thought. There was a huge sense of relief, and I knew the healing had come. And that proved to be the case—the sore on my child’s leg healed. I touched the bandage once more, and that was to take it off.
Margaret Wylie
Mount Holly, New Jersey, US
