Testimony of Healing February 10, 2014 Issue

A clear face and identity

Kendra Scott

I had recently graduated from college and suddenly felt stripped of my sense of identity. It seemed as though my peace, my purpose, and my direction were tied up in my previous life at school. I felt unclear about who I was and couldn’t seem to figure out how I could get on the right track to feeling like myself again.

During this time, a growth appeared on my face. It was very distracting and discouraging to see when I looked in the mirror. Eventually I decided that every time I saw the spot on my face and thought, “Ugly,” I would say three things that were real about me, the way God saw me: beautiful, strong, loved. Even if I didn’t believe what I was saying at the time, I kept it up. By doing this, I was turning my gaze from darkness to light, “from sense to Soul” (Violet Hay, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 64). I was taking to heart Mary Baker Eddy’s instruction in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “The way to extract error from mortal mind is to pour in truth through flood-tides of Love” (p. 201). I knew that I didn’t want to give error a foundation to build on.

As I was removing the impurities in my thought, I couldn’t help but think of this time as a baptism. In Science and Health, in the Glossary, baptism is defined in part as “purification by Spirit; submergence in Spirit” (p. 581). This cleansing was a process of submerging myself in the goodness of God’s love for me, and cleaning away any thoughts that said I was unworthy or unclear.