Article December 31, 2018 Issue

Made new

Lois Degler

One of the special blessings that comes to us as we learn more about God and man through Christian Science, and yield to this truth, is that we’re made new. And as we become new, what is old, outgrown, and an obnoxious drag on our thought and life is naturally cleared out. That’s a biblical promise: “For if a man is in Christ he becomes a new person altogether—the past is finished and gone, everything has become fresh and new” (II Corinthians 5:17, J. B. Phillips, The New Testament in Modern English).

I’m very grateful for an experience I had of being made new. Though a challenge at the time, it proved to be very instructive, a point of spiritual growth and progress. It was a Sunday, and I was to leave shortly for church, where I would be conducting the service as a substitute Reader. All of a sudden I remembered an experience my husband had had a number of years earlier. He was conducting the Sunday service, also as a substitute, and in the middle of that service, he became incapacitated. Someone else had to take his place and finish the service.

He had a very quick healing through prayer as practiced in Christian Science. But with that mental reminder and replay of his experience, I was overcome with fear. I knew the fear was unreasonable, but nevertheless, I was in a panic. I prayed. After a time of mentally flailing about, I recalled that my husband had been healed. That was comforting, of course. It reassured me that prayer affirming God’s forever government of His perfectly created man does heal. But that wasn’t enough to bring the peace that I needed. There was still the “fact” of his sudden illness.

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