When I was on a business trip several years ago, a painful condition in my side was again making me feel very uncomfortable. I had been struggling with this problem for a long time. Having faith in what Christian Science could do for me, I decided to again call a Christian Science practitioner for treatment through prayer. I expected to be healed, because I had experienced so much healing over the years. Yet this problem had not yet yielded. 

I reached the practitioner and complained about living with this discomfort as well as facing other challenges. These challenges included a stressful work environment in a new field of research, the obligations of a growing family of young children, responsibilities at church, and concerns about the world we live in. Her straightforward response to my complaints startled me: “So, do you want to keep living in that stressful world?” This question made me realize I didn’t have to live in the world I was describing.

Many of us are familiar with the expression, “Be in the world, but not of it”—which takes on new meaning when we see, through spiritual sense, that we actually live in God’s perfect, spiritual universe and that we have the power to perceive it. In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures we read: “The adult, in bondage to his beliefs, no more comprehends his real being than does the child; and the adult must be taken out of his darkness, before he can get rid of the illusive sufferings which throng the gloaming. The way in divine Science is the only way out of this condition” (Mary Baker Eddy, p. 371). Progress in seeing spiritually rather than accepting a material sense of being was my ticket to freedom from suffering. The physical malady did not disappear immediately, but this was the beginning of the end of the difficulty. I realized that my true selfhood was never in matter but was always one with the Father, God, Spirit. 

My true selfhood was never in matter but was always one with the Father, God, Spirit.

I am thankful for this experience with the insightful practitioner, which illustrates the following statement in Science and Health: “If it becomes necessary to startle mortal mind to break its dream of suffering, vehemently tell your patient that he must awake. Turn his gaze from the false evidence of the senses to the harmonious facts of Soul and immortal being” (p. 420). This was just what I needed.

Many of us seem to be faced with longtime challenges and are seeking definitive healing. But can we experience the harmony of being while believing that we live in matter? Divine Life, God, is the Supreme Being, and our life as the reflection of this Life is also supreme and grand. This means we can get started by expressing the Godlike qualities of patience, meekness, and love that are so needed for our progress. 

During the period leading up to my complete physical healing, I learned many lessons. It turns out that simply knowing what is true about spiritual being is not enough if we are at the same time believing in or fearing matter or what we think it might do to or for us. In Science and Health we read: “What is termed material sense can report only a mortal temporary sense of things, whereas spiritual sense can bear witness only to Truth. To material sense, the unreal is the real until this sense is corrected by Christian Science” (p. 298). It is necessary to deny material sense—which is the unreal—every time it confronts us and to replace it with what we know to be spiritually true. 

Anxiety about my job and world problems gave way to a greater trust in God’s guidance. As I relied on our Father-Mother God, family issues greatly lessened, and my participation in church became more inspired. Most beneficial of all was an increased willingness to replace irritation, annoyance, and reaction with appreciation, gratitude, and love.

I learned that our world—our consciousness—can be transformed each day by becoming more aware of the truth that harmony and heaven are not only always present, but are, in fact, the world we truly live in. Science and Health states it clearly: “Pilgrim on earth, thy home is heaven; stranger, thou art the guest of God” (p. 254). How grateful I am to understand better through Christian Science the reality of the true, spiritual world we all have.