Testimony of Healing February 22, 2016 Issue

Healed of panic attacks

Marietta Stofer

Originally written in German, this first appeared in the January 2016 Portuguese, Spanish, French, and German editions of The Herald of Christian Science.

I had sometimes heard people talk about panic attacks, and I had always wondered how it’s possible that people could give fear so much rein that it could limit their freedom of activity. And I could never have imagined that one day fear and panic would get a grip on me! Looking back, I now realize that by giving power to those reports about panic attacks, I had inadvertently given life to the problem, instead of denying it power and reality as Christian Science teaches us to do. I thought too much about other people suffering with this condition and about the images associated with it; in other words, I believed it. And then one day, several years ago, I myself experienced the same symptoms.

Initially, I just felt plain frustrated and sorry for myself. All my thoughts kept circling around the fear. I literally feared the fear. I felt helpless, completely at the mercy of this fear. Even though I tried to pray, I felt that my attempts were halfhearted; I felt as though I was fighting a losing battle.

One day, while surfing the Internet, I came across a place on a website of The Mother Church where participants shared how they had found freedom from fears through Christian Science. Their reports encouraged me, and I started to pray earnestly. I was determined to stand up to the fear and not let it dominate and paralyze me any longer. I asked myself, “What is it that governs me?” Even though at the moment it appeared that it was fear that governed me, from what I already had read about and grasped of Christian Science, I knew that, in truth, it was exactly the opposite: In reality, only God, the absolute Supreme Being, actually governed me, because He is the only real governor. I tried to stick to this truth and accept it for myself because I knew it was a spiritual fact and would bring healing.

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