Nurturing the healer in us all

Perhaps at one time or another you have thought, “I am not a healer.” But evidence abounds of God’s healing qualities reflected in every one of us. Have you ever caressed a nervous pet, kissed a child before dropping him at school, or helped out a neighbor? Even the smallest expression of gentleness and love can redeem a moment from fear and worry. 

Christ Jesus discerned the healer tendencies in those around him, and he helped us know how to recognize and value the healer in ourselves and in others. The opening passages of Jesus’ Sermon on the Mount, known as the Beatitudes, point to qualities that equip us to be healers—qualities such as receptivity, sacrifice, humility, devotion, lovingkindness, pure goodness, peacemaking, reconciliation, and persistence in adversity. Identifying in ourselves and others these Christlike qualities that forward healing enables us to begin to value and put them into practice.

One way of nurturing the healer in us is to be alert to ungodlike traits that would interfere with our being ready and willing to help when needed—any negative thought or behavior that would lead us away from expressing true goodness and unselfed love. Jesus called such traits sin, and his teachings encourage us to be aware of the sin that would choke out opportunities God gives us to help and heal. In fact, Jesus’ teachings require us to challenge human tendencies toward anger, selfishness, sensuality, dishonesty, fear, greed, hatred, and frustration. He raised the bar from accepting and succumbing to these traits, or sin, as normal and unavoidable to instead challenging and redeeming each temptation as a healing moment.

What a healer most assuredly needs is spiritual understanding. God, the divine Mind, reflects in us—Mind’s spiritual creation—the wisdom and understanding necessary to heal. This being true, to the degree that the moral demands are met, anything that would interfere washes away, so that we can confidently affirm and demonstrate, “I am a healer.”

One way of nurturing the healer in us is to be alert to ungodlike traits that would interfere with being ready and willing to help when needed. 

Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of Christian Science, wrote, “Man’s moral mercury, rising or falling, registers his healing ability and fitness to teach” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 449). As a thermometer indicates the rise and fall of air temperature, we all have “moral mercury,” which each moment is either rising to the divine standard of good, or falling under the distraction or seduction of material-mindedness—pulling us away from preparedness to heal. 

Simply feeling guilty about wrongdoing or wrong thinking isn’t enough. Christian Science teaches that genuine goodness is Godlikeness and that the Christ—the truth of God and of man’s perfect reflection of divine good—is an ever-present help in redeeming any moment from sin. A simple pause to ask, “Is this thought or behavior drawing me closer to or pulling me away from God’s all-goodness?” can help us turn to Christ to redeem any moment from whatever is ungodlike. And this paves the way for a purely spiritual, or Christianly scientific, view of everyone—ourselves included—to take hold of our thoughts, bringing definitive healing to minds and bodies.

Members of a church congregation, preparing to present their community with a lecture on Christian Science healing, asked themselves, “How are we seeing others in the community—as healers or as patients?” They realized that when an accountant works diligently to help a client meet a deadline or a sales clerk patiently searches for a customer’s perfect clothing size, the desire to care, support, and help others evidences the healer heart that God has given us all. As the members considered their community, their own moral mercury rose, and they unselfishly wanted their lecture to nurture all those healers and healing qualities. 

They extended invitations to people they had never considered before, and “healers” from all walks of life attended the lecture, learning something more about both their innate ability to heal and the metaphysical system that makes Christly healing repeatable today. 

We owe it to ourselves and our world to nurture the healer God has designed each of us to be. Christian Science leads us back to the Master, Christ Jesus, whose ministry provides a health-restoring template for the practice of healing and blessing—for cultivating in ourselves and others Christly qualities that equip us in this practice and enable us to recognize and cherish the healer in us all.

Michelle Boccanfuso Nanouche
Guest Editorial Writer