Healing from studying the Bible Lesson
A few years ago on an early Monday morning, I was seeking stillness when I turned to God in prayer. For a day or two, I had been experiencing urinary discomfort and pain. Through my study of Christian Science, I knew that I could turn to God for healing. The master Christian, Christ Jesus, demonstrated the powerlessness of sickness during his healing ministry, and Christian Science teaches the infinite possibilities for healing today.
Each week, I study the Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly in order to gain inspiration—especially from the Bible stories—to obtain a new understanding of Jesus’ teachings, and to ponder the spiritual truths from the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
The subject of the Lesson that week was “Man.” I focused my reading on gathering spiritual insights into my identity and health. I very much wanted to commune quietly with God.
The Lesson included this promise from the prophet Jeremiah: “Blessed is the man that trusteth in the Lord, and whose hope the Lord is. For he shall be as a tree planted by the waters, and that spreadeth out her roots by the river, and shall not see when heat cometh, but her leaf shall be green; and shall not be careful in the year of drought, neither shall cease from yielding fruit” (Jeremiah 17:7, 8).
Jeremiah’s analogy of man being like a tree revealed a specific truth to me about my being. Just like the tree with healthy green leaves and roots that spread next to the river, I too was upright, healthy, substantial, and good. Here was a spiritual promise from the prophet that God’s goodness is perpetual. My Lesson study was off to a wonderful start! I was feeling inspired and close to God.
As I continued reading, I came to the words of Paul that teach us to be “absent from the body and . . . present with the Lord” (II Corinthians 5:8). Paul writes earlier in that same letter that God has given us the “earnest”—the pledge or guarantee—“of the Spirit” (1:22). And in the correlative passages from Science and Health in that section of the Lesson, I read, “Continuing our definition of man, let us remember that harmonious and immortal man has existed forever, and is always beyond and above the mortal illusion of any life, substance, and intelligence as existent in matter” (p. 302). Paul’s words and those from Science and Health were tenderly loving, truthful, and powerful.
As I thought about what I was reading, I felt that I could actively claim my freedom from illness. I became more assured that because God is infinite Life, Truth, and Love, my life could only be harmonious, and that therefore I couldn’t experience pain. I knew that God, divine Love, didn’t create pain. From that spiritual fact, I concluded that the urinary complaint was a falsity, and I quickly refused to believe that false report. I decided that only God could speak the truth to me about my life. What I was reading from Science and Health revealed that my life is completely spiritual and that pain is a mortal illusion that disappears when we mentally hold fast to our understanding of God, Truth.
Within ten to fifteen minutes of prayerful study, I was completely healed. There was no more pain, and throughout the day my bodily functions were normal and natural. I rejoiced and thanked God for His tender care and love. I have never again suffered from this ailment.
I’m so grateful for the weekly Christian Science Bible Lessons. That day, the Lesson’s healing truths that I pondered and prayed with resulted in an immediate healing. Divine Science had freed me from this false belief of pain, or intelligence, in matter. I recognized that I was, and always had been, free to be who God had created—a beautiful, spiritual, and loved daughter of God. In gratitude, I also acknowledged that freedom and purity were universal and absolute for all.
Susie Johnston
Yorktown, Virginia, US
