Everyone smiled when I brought in the Boston cream pie I had made for dessert recently. After the first taste, however, the smiles quickly faded. Something was obviously wrong. In fact, I had used a wrong ingredient, resulting in a very bitter-tasting dessert!

This incident started me thinking about the kind of elements that we—all of us in our true identity as God’s image—are actually made up of: spiritual elements, such as strength, intelligence, and purity. I was reminded of an experience I’d had several years ago that proved that holding on to this correct, spiritual view of ourselves and others brings healing.

After a fall, I started walking with a limp, owing to a painful sensation in my hip and upper leg. I called a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. The practitioner suggested that I keep in thought these right ideas: that I am created by God; that He loves, protects, and maintains me; and that I can “walk in the Spirit” (Galatians 5:16) and not accept the material view of myself as reality, because God, Spirit, is All. I also found comfort from Hymn No. 139 in the Christian Science Hymnal, the first verse of which is as follows:

Over the next couple of weeks, I endeavored to really understand what it means to “walk in the Spirit.” With each step I took, I strove to see myself not as a mortal with a painful condition to deal with, but as a divine idea, expressing elements such as strength, kindness, peacefulness, agelessness, and integrity—free from pain, as God’s child. Instead of feeling sorry for myself, I felt grateful for every step of spiritual growth.

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, understood that Christ Jesus healed by looking beyond the material picture to the spiritual view of man. She says, “Man is not matter; he is not made up of brain, blood, bones, and other material elements” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 475). Later in the same paragraph, she writes, “He is the compound idea of God, including all right ideas; ….”

I was learning to see myself as the expression of God, Principle, governed completely by Spirit, not by bones and muscles. I realized that divine Mind is the only communicator and never creates pain; that the right activity of Life is what’s expressed in me; that the beauty of Soul cannot be interrupted or flawed; that divine Love fills all space; and that the truth of man’s dominion over all the ills of the flesh applies to me and everyone else as well. When I woke up each morning, and when I went out to do errands during the day, I kept my thought on these truths, instead of wondering about what seemed to be going on physically with my hip and leg.

As I better understood myself to be the perfect image and likeness of God, created to express Him and made of only spiritual elements, I experienced complete healing. The pain disappeared and my ability to walk correctly was restored.

Mrs. Eddy reminds us, “Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts” (Science and Health, p. 261). I am so grateful to have learned through this healing that this clear instruction really does free us from bitter experiences, reveal the spiritual elements that truly make up man, and bring healing into our lives.

Anne Holway Higgins
West Wareham, Massachusetts, US