Speaker: I’m sure that everyone with a serious problem or disease wants to be helped and healed. And the prayer of spiritual understanding is equal to every need. But it’s well to be aware of the fact that true, spiritual healing makes definite demands on the individual. Our guest found this to be so, and she also found healing of a very serious internal growth. We’ve asked her to tell you about it. This is Mrs. Eleanor Bell, of Oakland, California. When did all this take place, Mrs. Bell?

Mrs. Bell: This experience is one of the most wonderful things that ever happened to me. It took place about eighteen years ago. The difficulty was an internal growth. All the symptoms suggested cancer. But I realized the word incurable simply springs from ignorance of God’s willingness and ability to heal. I knew personally of a number of wonderful healings accomplished through Christian Science; so I had absolute confidence that the problem would be overcome through reliance on God.

So every day I spent many hours studying the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. There was a great deal of pain, and over a period of six months the condition grew worse. It was all I could do to stay at work.

However, as I continued studying I realized that back of this physical problem was a lot of grief and hateful thinking that had to be corrected. My immediate superior at work was a woman who had been a very dear friend. But for a long time she had shown extreme jealousy and animosity toward me, often in front of others. Facing this situation every day, I found it was difficult not to react with unkind thoughts.

I could see that love would heal this situation, not a fluctuating human love, but the changeless love of God.

I became deeply hurt, crushed with grief over this lost friendship, as well as resentful and rebellious. I knew this was the basic trouble. But it seemed so real to me that for a long time I could not seem to cope with it in spite of continued study and prayer.

Then a girl friend and I went to a cabin in the Colorado Rockies for a vacation. We had no neighbors, no transportation, no telephone. While we were there I became so ill that I couldn’t retain food. My vision became dim, and my hearing was affected. For three days the thoughts of approaching death were extremely strong, so strong that I was afraid to go to sleep. I thought I might not awaken. Suddenly I remembered seeing an album of Christian Science hymns, and I asked my friend to play them for me.

As I listened to the healing messages in those hymns, I felt a wonderful sense of inspiration; and I began to realize that my thought was being led step by step out of that frightening experience. I saw that first of all I must gain an understanding of man’s spiritual relationship to God rather than allow my thought to dwell on the physical condition that seemed so real. I saw the need for rejoicing rather than being wrapped up and consumed with self-pity.

I began to see also that the man of God’s creation is spiritual and perfect. And this gave me cause for rejoicing. This opened my thought to the realization that there was a way out of this problem.

I finally began to feel a sense of joy. It became clearer that I had to be willing to face and overcome the sin of being resentful, hurt, and rebellious. I had to learn what it means to love my fellow man as Christ Jesus loved. For my superior and I had seemed to be two warring minds. One of Mrs. Eddy’s poems entitled “Love,” set to music in the Christian Science Hymnal, helped tremendously to clear up this erroneous thinking. One verse of the hymn reads (Poems, p. 6):

I could see that love would heal this situation, not a fluctuating human love, but the changeless love of God, love that just loves regardless of circumstances, just as a flower gives off perfume. The kind of love Mrs. Eddy describes in Science and Health [in the definition of Gethsemane] as “love meeting no response, but still remaining love” (p. 586). I saw suddenly the unreality of this picture of two warring minds, because there is just one infinite, divine Mind, God. Since this Mind is Love, and man is the image and likeness of this Mind, why, man can only express Love.

It burst upon my thought that in reality this other person loved me, and I loved her. Actually we couldn’t do anything else. I saw this so clearly my consciousness became filled with love. It was just exquisite. And with this realization, I was healed. And I knew it. I rose from the bed and dressed. I was completely restored and hungry as a bear. In a few days our vacation was over, and we left the cabin and returned to work.

At first my superior’s attitude toward me seemed unchanged. In fact, one day she came in, grabbed me by the arm, pulled me into her office, and started a tirade. But I did not react to it this time. I just felt nothing but love for her. And as I stood there, her voice became softer and softer, and finally she stopped right in the middle of a sentence. She went over to the window and looked out, and I left the room.

From that moment on, neither of us ever mentioned the trouble again. It was completely wiped out, and we became the closest of friends again. I am certainly deeply grateful for this experience, for it awakened me to understand more of the changeless nature of divine Love that heals.