Testimony of Healing June 10, 2013 Issue

Our only need

Bill Badger

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy wrote: “Human theories are helpless to make man harmonious or immortal, since he is so already, according to Christian Science. Our only need is to know this and reduce to practice the real man’s divine Principle, Love” (p. 490). “Our only need”? Seems impossible. Yet it underscores what Christian Science is all about, the fact that God has made man perfect and that nothing can be taken away from this eternal goodness and perfection—nothing can be, or needs to be, added to it.

As Mrs. Eddy’s spiritual translation of the 23rd Psalm puts it, “[Divine love] is my shepherd; I shall not want” (p. 578). With the shepherding care of divine Love, we have what we need. How we live our days, how we relate to others, what we accept as true must be based on this always sustainable truth of being—that God, Love, alone, reigns and is unopposed, even when matter looks so valid and real.

Several years ago, a small growth began to appear above my cheek, just under my eye. I was disturbed by it and afraid of it. I began to treat the situation in Christian Science. Science and Health says, “Christian scientific practice begins with Christ’s keynote of harmony, ‘Be not afraid!’ ” (p. 410). So my fear had to be addressed. I insisted that inharmony in any situation is not the reality of being, but a false picture with no validity or truth. Why should I fear what is unreal? I am God’s likeness (see Genesis 1:26, 27) and can only experience unchanging and harmonious good.