Prayer for country brings healing

A little over a year ago I accepted a job in a university town in another part of the country. Over the next couple of days after accepting the job, I heard commercials describing the risks and symptoms of a certain illness. I immediately responded in prayer, denying that this could be true in divine reality, because God doesn’t create sickness. I persisted, to a degree, in claiming the unchanging harmony of my true, spiritual identity as God’s child.

When I began to experience aggressive symptoms, I was tempted to condemn myself, feeling I could have been more alert to these suggestions of illness. However, I quickly overcame this false notion that I was at fault, and decided that I could instead stand firm with Christ, Truth, as Jesus demonstrated in healing the sick.

The symptoms seemed tenacious throughout the day, but I was equally persistent in turning to God, divine Love, and in being grateful for Love’s allness, and this helped me to see the nothingness of evil and to cast out fear. A particular phrase from Mary Baker Eddy’s book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures that stayed with me was “transplant the affections from sense to Soul” (pp. 265–266) —Soul being a synonym for God.

I decided that if the situation didn’t improve by morning, I would call a Christian Science practitioner for metaphysical treatment. In the meantime, I knew that I had been faithful in seeing the perfection of God and all of His creation, including me, and I needed to trust that my prayer was effective.

I wanted to get my thoughts off of myself and pray for humanity. I had studied that week’s Bible Lesson-Sermon from the Christian Science Quarterly earlier in the day, and in the evening I read some articles about national and world events from The Christian Science Monitor. As love for my fellow men and women began to pour into my thought, the light of Christ broke through with this clear message: “I love my country.”

I was immediately awakened to the need to defend my thoughts more thoroughly from the influence of certain sentiments about my country being stirred up in thought both nationally and around the world at this time. By the time I finished reading and praying in this way that evening, the symptoms had begun to subside. Over the next couple of days, as I persisted along this line of spiritual endeavor, praying for myself and my country, the illness completely dissipated and did not return.

I’m so grateful for the teachings of Christian Science and for what it reveals to us about God, the one Mind, who always directs our paths and prayers in “transplant[ing] the affections from sense to Soul”—in expressing the unselfed love that is a direct reflection of divine Love.

Kathleen Mitchener
Madison, Wisconsin, US