Testimony of Healing December 26, 2016 Issue

Prayer eliminates intense pain

Paul Cawood Hellmund

I wasn’t feeling well one afternoon last year, so I decided to lie down for a while. Within a short time, I was in so much pain that I wasn’t comfortable lying down—or standing up, either. I kept walking around and moaning. My wife came to help me, and at my request she called a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me.

I realized that I needed to curtail my moaning, which wasn’t helping me to pray—to think clearly about my relation to God—something that had brought countless healings in the past. I am a lifelong student of Christian Science and have never relied on any other means of healing.

After several hours of intense pain, I wasn’t sure I was going to make it. And I had a very curious thought: “I should say goodbye to my wife and thank her for all our years together.” Almost immediately, these words came to mind: “Resist the devil, and he will flee from you” (James 4:7). It seemed to me this imperative from Scripture was the “angel” message from God I needed, correcting what on the surface sounded like an unselfish and loving notion. I saw that the “devil” that needed resisting was the suggestion that pain and disease—anything that would make me feel separate from God, good—was real.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Image and Inspiration

'According as her labors rise ...'