I sat next to the student I was tutoring, helping him to work through a problem in his physics homework. I quickly saw the solution, but he didn’t. I prayed, knowing that everyone expresses the intelligence of God, the one infinite Mind. Then the light of understanding dawned, and the student too saw the solution.

I often think of this experience when sharing Christian Science with others. Christian Science, like physics, is based on laws that, when understood and applied, solve problems. As we pray, we feel the presence of God, who gives each of His children the ability to understand His divine laws—an ability so masterfully demonstrated in Jesus’ healing works, as recorded in the Bible—and how to demonstrate them in our own lives.

I began my study of Christian Science as a physics major in college and saw similarities in how I needed to approach both subjects. Neither the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, nor a physics textbook can be read like a novel. Each idea in a textbook needs to be pondered and its applications considered. Physics problems are worked out through physical solutions, while problems are solved spiritually in Christian Science.

Just as gravity doesn’t choose whom it affects, God, Love itself, doesn’t choose whom to love, but loves everyone, all of His children. And if individuals don’t understand gravity, gravity doesn’t punish them. Likewise, God doesn’t punish us for not understanding Him or our relation to Him. He is always present and ready to comfort and guide those who turn to Him in prayer. As we strive to understand and obey His laws, we find that we are safe, secure, and happy. And as we demonstrate God’s laws in our daily lives, we find ourselves increasingly less subject to supposed material laws such as gravity, as proved by Jesus, the master Christian, when he walked on the water.

The ideas in the book become engraved in our hearts. 

Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, expected every student of Christian Science to own and study the Christian Science textbook. She explains that it contains “a thorough statement of Christian Science” and “gave the first rules for demonstrating this Science, and registered the revealed Truth uncontaminated by human hypotheses” (Science and Health, pp. 456–457). This book describes the nature of God and our inseparable relation to Him. Unlike physics, Christian Science is based on working with thought rather than matter. We experience healing when our thought is brought into line with God’s spiritual laws of harmony.

As a new student of Christian Science, I voraciously read the textbook from cover to cover. My desire to truly understand the Science of Christianity bore fruit during my sophomore year, when I had a quick healing of a digestive illness that had been known to last for a week or more. By pondering truths in the chapter “Footsteps of Truth” and identifying myself correctly as God’s perfect expression, I was healed within a day.

Science and Health directs readers to “stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously” (p. 392). The book provides no mantras to be repeated over and over. Instead, it is filled with instruction showing us how to open our thought to God and bar our thought against anything unlike Him. Through our study of the Bible and Science and Health, we learn that God is Spirit and that we are made in His image and likeness and are therefore spiritual, not material. And we learn the nature of the “mind . . . which was also in Christ Jesus” (Philippians 2:5) and that this is the true Mind of all of God’s children.

In Christian Science we learn to work out our own salvation—which includes praying daily for ourselves—and how to lean on God, not on a person, for healing. While Christian Science practitioners and teachers do give Christian Science treatment through prayer, their role is also to help patients and students understand and apply the ideas in the Bible and Science and Health. Our connection to God is always intact, and practitioners pray to know that patients can feel that connection. 

Mrs. Eddy writes of “the patient’s spiritual power to resuscitate himself” (Science and Health, p. 365). Patients have an important role in healing. As we sincerely pray to understand God and His nature as ever-present, all-powerful Love, our thought is prepared to receive the influx of divine light and love, which leads to healing.

Students of Christian Science strive to be healers. There are not two classes of Christian Scientists—healers and patients. In Science and Health we read, “It is possible,—yea, it is the duty and privilege of every child, man, and woman,—to follow in some degree the example of the Master by the demonstration of Truth and Life, of health and holiness” (p. 37).

Through dedicated study of Science and Health and the Bible, everyone can learn to heal themselves and others. The last hundred pages of Science and Health contain testimonies by individuals who found healing just by reading the textbook. The ideas in the book become engraved in our hearts. And when we are confronted by a problem of any kind or severity, we can turn to God, humbly listening for His guidance on how to go forward. God reveals exactly what we need to know in every situation.

Through my deep study of Science and Health, the ideas it contains have become inscribed on my heart. I have learned that I am never alone and that I can trust God at any time and in any circumstance. For example, last summer I had a quick healing of food poisoning while traveling solo in Quebec, Canada. I had become quite ill in the middle of the night and was concerned because I needed to drive to Vermont the next day to visit my brother. 

As I prayed, I knew that God was with me, loving and caring for me. I truly wasn’t alone, far from home without help. I felt God’s presence. Soon, the offending food was expelled from my system naturally, and I returned to bed and went back to sleep. When I woke up in the morning, I was completely free. I had a joy-filled multi-hour drive and a wonderful visit with my brother. There wasn’t a vestige of the previous night’s discomfort.  

Everyone can feel God’s presence, and our awareness of His goodness and presence will grow as we strive to understand and live the inspired ideas presented in Science and Health.