One evening I was watching a TV show with my husband when the sound suddenly seemed to be distorted and echo-like. I asked my husband if he thought there was something wrong with the TV, and he replied that everything sounded fine to him. I continued listening, but something sounded abnormal to me.

The next morning, I was practicing hymns for Sunday School on the piano, and it sounded quite out of tune, especially the bass range. I asked my husband if the piano sounded off-key, and he said it sounded correct to him. The thought came that my hearing was what was broken, not the TV or the piano. Right on the heels of that suggestion, the words “I will listen for Thy voice,” from a poem by the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, Mary Baker Eddy (Poems, p. 14), came to thought. This angel message redirected my thinking from feeling concern about my hearing to listening for spiritual truths from God. 

After church I began to strongly affirm that because they originate in God, divine Mind, hearing and all other faculties are spiritual, not material. The Bible says, “The hearing ear, and the seeing eye, the Lord hath made even both of them” (Proverbs 20:12). This helped me understand that hearing and seeing are not dependent on physical organs. I also found a pamphlet titled “Faculties indestructible,” consisting of articles from the Christian Science periodicals, and I read it through several times. The idea that I am the reflection of God was very strong. And I understood that a reflection is a full, not a partial experience. Perfect God is the original, and perfect man—in this case, me—is His reflection. It was clear to me that this reflection could never be distorted or delayed. 

After praying with these insights for a few days, I woke up one morning with hearing that
was clear as a bell. A couple of months later, though, the cloudy, distorted hearing returned. I knew deep down that this was not possible, as surely as I knew that it had been a non-event the first time it came to my attention. I called a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me and was open to what God would reveal about my relationship to Him. 

Besides affirming that our true faculties are purely spiritual, the practitioner shared the idea that cohesiveness is a quality of God and therefore of God’s creation. This led me to accept that everything about me was intact and not susceptible to wearing out or falling apart. I was so grateful for this new understanding and spiritual growth. The healing was complete, and I affirmed this with great joy. 

A few weeks later, a slight symptom of the first experience appeared. I immediately stopped what I was doing and vehemently said, “No! I don’t believe this now; I didn’t believe it before; and I won’t believe it in the future.” Then another strong thought filled my consciousness: Mortal mind (a term for a supposed mind in matter) is void of intelligence, and therefore has no intelligence to repeat itself! I laughed out loud, and that was the end of the temptation to think that anything but God and His perfect image and likeness were present.

I am so grateful to God, to Christ Jesus, and to Mrs. Eddy. I am grateful for our church and practitioners and fellow students of Christian Science. It is a privilege to naturally and actively turn to God, our Father-Mother Love, who is protecting and guiding us every moment of every day.

Katherine Matusek Lovegren
Manchester, Missouri, US