Early one morning I felt assaulted by intense pain. My first thoughts were, “What? How did this happen? Did a bug sting me? Am I allergic?” The symptoms worsened, but I just wanted to know and think about my spiritual being as God’s reflection, which I knew would bring peace and healing. So my next thought was, “Call a Christian Science practitioner.” 

I had no name for this malady, but the practitioner I called didn’t need that. She simply knew my true being as created by God, Spirit, untouched by the picture matter was presenting. As a loved child of God, I could reflect only the wholeness and harmony of Spirit. The practitioner’s prayerful treatment had a calming effect on me. She reminded me to, as Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “stand porter at the door of thought” (p. 392), to dismiss thoughts about a material illness and instead look to what is really true about me as a spiritual idea of God: that I am upright, pure, free, innocent, loved, and loving. 

For the first several days I would get only temporary relief from the pain. Early one morning when I was in a great deal of pain, although the practitioner was in a different time zone, I called again for help. I am so grateful for the love this practitioner exhibited: There were no complaints about my calling in the middle of the night or about my call being inconvenient—all I felt from this practitioner was love. After that call, the pain disappeared quickly and finally, never to return. 

However, the visual symptoms continued to develop. I continued to pray, but I also had to persistently fight off the temptation of wanting to know where this condition came from materially and what its diagnosis might be. I was mesmerized by this temptation and fear, and couldn’t seem to get rid of it. 

The practitioner pointed me to a statement by Mrs. Eddy in her book Retrospection and Introspection: “Christian Science declares that sickness is a belief, a latent fear, made manifest on the body in different forms of fear or disease. This fear is formed unconsciously in the silent thought, as when you awaken from sleep and feel ill, experiencing the effect of a fear whose existence you do not realize; but if you fall asleep, actually conscious of the truth of Christian Science,—namely, that man’s harmony is no more to be invaded than the rhythm of the universe,—you cannot awake in fear or suffering of any sort” (p. 61). 

As I pored over this statement, I thought I would look up invade in the dictionary. I found that one of the synonyms for invade is occupy. I thought, “Oh my, I have not only allowed an invasion, but I have also been allowing it to stay, to occupy my thought.” Knowing this was helpful. When I started wondering about how this condition developed in me or what it was, I recognized the temptation to give it a power it didn’t have. I declared that it didn’t have power from God to invade my thought or to stay there, whether I was awake or asleep.

The practitioner helped me understand that as we turn away from the body and to divine Truth and Love, and know our spiritual essence as God’s reflection, then we recognize that there is no substance to the aggressive mental suggestions that we are material and vulnerable to disease. As I began to do this, I found peace. Fear was replaced with gratitude and confidence in God’s goodness and power. Within another week, all visual evidence of the illness was gone. I was completely healed. 

Several months later I overheard a conversation in which one person described to another a condition a family member was dealing with, and the symptoms this person mentioned were identical to what I had experienced. This person said that the name of the condition was shingles and that the individual dealing with it was in for a long siege. This conversation prompted me not only to be grateful for my healing, but also to silently declare that the true innocence and freedom that God gives are available to everyone. 

I am so grateful for this healing, which helped me feel the presence of God, and for the practitioner who so readily took on my case. I am so grateful to have been part of a family who made Christian Science our way of life, which has led to a lifetime of healing experiences for me. And I am so grateful for the opportunity to be a part of an association of pupils who took instruction from the same Christian Science teacher, and for the love and guidance our dedicated teacher shares with us every year. Yes, I truly am grateful for Christian Science.

Lynda Means 
Wasilla, Alaska, US