I am very grateful for Christian Science and the many healings I have had over my lifetime. One healing years ago was particularly memorable.

I grew up attending Christian Science Sunday School, but as a young adult I drifted away from Christian Science. While I never completely abandoned it, I did not attend church regularly and applied the teachings only when I encountered difficulties in business, relationships, and everyday life. For health problems, I typically sought medical attention. 

But I eventually found that practicing Christian Science in this half-hearted way just doesn’t work. I had to reconsider this approach after I developed a very painful elbow condition that prevented me from playing tennis, a sport that I loved and had played competitively and at a high level since my youth. The problem became chronic, and I finally decided to see a doctor. He ordered an MRI and told me that my condition was the natural outcome of many years of stress and that nothing could be done short of surgery. 

Well, there’s an old saying that “man’s extremity is God’s opportunity,” and I did what I should have done from the start: I turned wholeheartedly to God. Disregarding what the doctor had told me, I turned my thoughts to the truths that I knew from my earlier study of Christian Science.

Around the same time, I was retiring from my business career, and this allowed me a lot of time to do a “deep dive” into Christian Science. I spent most of that summer reading the textbook Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy from cover to cover, reading the Christian Science magazines, and meeting on a regular basis with a Christian Science practitioner from whom I had requested treatment. 

The practitioner and I prayed with the spiritual truths about God and man found in the Bible and Science and Health. We focused on the allness and perfection of God; the perfection of God’s spiritual, eternal creation, man (a term that refers to each and every individual); and the nothingness of anything unlike God, such as discord and disease. Now, it’s one thing to acknowledge and affirm these truths but quite another to really understand them, and that’s where all my studying and praying came in.

As the summer progressed and the condition persisted, I had to resist the urge to constantly check my elbow to gauge my progress or the lack thereof. I realized that I had to turn my attention away from my body and not rely on the physical senses to tell me how I was doing. There were periods of discouragement when I didn’t think I was making any progress. However, the practitioner assured me that I was progressing spiritually and that when we make spiritual progress, the body has to conform. Science and Health explains, “The body improves under the same regimen which spiritualizes the thought . . .” (p. 370).

Somewhere along the way, I stopped focusing on the problem and trying to fix my body and just enjoyed what I was learning about God and my wholly spiritual identity. Spiritual growth became my goal. It was sometime after this shift in thought that I realized my arm was completely healed. I was able to resume playing tennis—and have played five or six days a week with complete freedom for many years since.

I am very grateful for this healing, but even more grateful for the confidence I gained in knowing that Christian Science is effective in healing any problem. Additionally, it was not long after this that I took Christian Science class instruction, which has deepened my love of this life-transforming Science and resulted in many healings and blessings over the years.

John Marshall
Rowayton, Connecticut, US