Learning to trust God for healing

For a couple of weeks, one of my ears had been bothering me. This concerned me because I swim a lot and the pain was making it difficult to enjoy my regular practices. I’ve been swimming ever since I was a toddler, and I love it. I’m on my high school swim team and even swim for a club team. 

All my life, I’ve relied on prayer for healing, with good results. So I felt that I should contact a Christian Science practitioner to pray with me. I knew that the only way to really deal with the fear and pain I was feeling was through prayer, and I also knew a practitioner would be the right person to help with that.

I knew that the only way to really deal with the fear and pain I was feeling was through prayer. 

The practitioner asked me to think and pray about the definition of ears in the Glossary of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, which would help me get a more spiritual perspective on my own situation. It says, “EARS. Not organs of the so-called corporeal senses, but spiritual understanding. 

“Jesus said, referring to spiritual perception, ‘Having ears, hear ye not?’ (Mark viii. 18)” (p. 585).

I thought about what spiritual understanding and spiritual perception meant. I realized that we don’t listen to God through our physical ears. We listen to Him with our thoughts and we understand Him as we know God as Spirit and ourselves as spiritual. This idea helped me listen to God instead of paying attention to my ear. I continued to think about this idea throughout the day and listened for the truth God was telling me. This really helped quiet the other thoughts in my head related to fear and pain and made me feel peaceful and close to God. 

Then, a few nights later, the pain got so intense I wasn’t able to sleep. My mom came to my room and stayed with me through the night. She prayed the Lord’s Prayer from the Bible out loud with me and shared other truths about God’s love for me and how this love is always present and can always be felt. Listening to her praying out loud helped me to focus on God rather than pain. Finally, I fell asleep.

In the morning, before I came downstairs for breakfast, I noticed that the pain in my ear had stopped. I was very happy to go to school, feeling free. 

All of this happened as final exams were beginning at my school and as I was planning to be away all summer as a junior counselor at a camp for Christian Scientists. I was really grateful because I knew this healing would help me in other experiences whenever I needed to feel more confident about my prayers. 

This was a foundational experience for me because it helped me understand more about God. It also taught me that I can trust God and that listening to Him brings peace and healing.

AARON CRANFORD — STAFF