A meaningful healing some years ago brought my complete freedom from a chronic inflammatory condition. While the healing didn’t happen overnight, I remember cherishing the conviction that one day I would be sharing this testimony with others, which was deeply encouraging.

One night, unable to get comfortable, I paced the floor, reaching out to God in prayer. I woke my husband, who opened the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, and began reading aloud to me. Hearing those familiar truths based on the health-giving and energizing laws of God that govern us brought me peace immediately. The pain dissipated, and we both went back to sleep. I awakened again a few hours later and then returned to sleep after my husband read aloud other comforting statements from the textbook.

In the morning, I called a Christian Science practitioner and asked her to pray for me, which she lovingly agreed to do. Although the pattern of discomfort followed by relief continued for some time, I prayed persistently and spoke with the practitioner daily, trusting this promise of God’s help: “In the day of my trouble I will call upon thee: for thou wilt answer me” (Psalms 86:7).

The nights were especially challenging. One night around 3 a.m., I was unable to sleep, and my husband suggested I call the practitioner. I demurred, saying that I didn’t want to wake her. With a smile, he read this counsel from Science and Health: “If students do not readily heal themselves, they should early call an experienced Christian Scientist to aid them” (p. 420).“It’s early,” he said. “You should call.” I laughed, then I called—and found relief. 

When I spoke with the practitioner again the next day, I admitted something I’d been afraid to share because I thought it might sound silly: I had become afraid of the night. Without missing a beat, she responded in such a lighthearted yet compassionate way that it startled me out of the mesmeric fear and enabled me to feel God’s presence and goodness.

It also ended up being a turning point in the healing. From that moment on, I was no longer afraid. In the weeks that followed, I studied the Bible as well as Science and Health and Mrs. Eddy’s other writings and felt especially comforted by hymns in the Christian Science Hymnal. My understanding of God and of my perfection as His reflection was being strengthened and enlarged daily. The Bible says, “God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness: and let them have dominion” (Genesis 1:26), and I was expressing greater dominion by persisting in the truth instead of entertaining unhelpful thoughts, such as “When will this end?” and “Why is this happening?”

This persistence, together with the encouraging daily prayers of the practitioner, spiritualized thought and led to my freedom. The immobility and pain disappeared, never to return.

During this time, I was unaware of how I was changing as a person, but in the months and years following the healing, two things became clear. First, I’d been healed of a false sense of personal control. A natural desire to do things the “right” way had morphed into wanting things to be done my way—even something as trivial as how the dishwasher was loaded. This controlling tendency completely dropped away, fulfilling this promise: “A little more grace, a motive made pure, a few truths tenderly told, a heart softened, a character subdued, a life consecrated, would restore the right action of the mental mechanism, and make manifest the movement of body and soul in accord with God” (Mary Baker Eddy, Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 354). 

Second, I learned the importance of persistence. Day in and day out, I chose to trust in God—to believe the spiritual truths He was imparting rather than the claims of the material senses that I had a physical problem. Again and again, I affirmed that I was a spiritual idea of the divine Mind, God, and was pure and perfect—and the more I not only believed but also understood this, the more solid and peaceful I felt. 

I can never express enough gratitude for Mrs. Eddy, for her discovery of Christian Science, and for what her textbook teaches us about the power and presence of our Father-Mother God. It is my privilege to submit this testimony as verification of the efficacy of Christian Science.

Jennifer McLaughlin
Boston, Massachusetts, US