Spirituality: The key to purity and healing

You only have to look at the news to know that the world needs more purity, whether it’s dealing with toxic conditions in areas affected by hurricanes, other forms of pollution or even disease. I’m not an environmental expert, but I’ve learned from my own experience that purity begins at home—that is, in each individual’s life. And to me, the key to purity is understanding that each of us is actually spiritual.

Although I grew up attending a Christian Science Sunday School, and went to church while I was at college, I gradually drifted away from the kind of spiritual thinking I’d been taught. Still, when I began to suffer from a painful physical condition, I asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray with me about the problem.

At the time, I think I just expected the practitioner to pray and that would be all I needed. I’d forgotten that Christian Science healing addresses problems from a deeper, spiritual level. And so, when the condition didn’t yield, I became afraid.

One night I was in a lot of pain and decided to seek medical assistance. The problem was diagnosed as a urinary tract infection. It was treated medically and cured.

I was told that it would probably recur. It did, and I sought medical assistance again. It was cured a second time.

And when I experienced the same symptoms a third time, I decided to rely on prayer. Experiences during childhood had shown me the effectiveness of prayer for physical healing and I now felt ready to face this challenge. I also called a Christian Science practitioner, who agreed to pray for me.Around this time, I was also feeling distressed about the financial challenges my husband’s business was going through, and I really needed some spiritual support. So I started attending church again. It really helped me to be more peaceful and closer to God. I loved the inspiration that I was receiving from these services.

The next day, in tears because of the discomfort I was feeling, I contacted him again. He lovingly but firmly pointed out that I needed to be praying for myself along with him. I couldn’t be a passive partner in the work we were doing together.

I was really surprised that he knew that I wasn’t as focused on prayer as I should have been. (I guess I was expecting healing to come about as it had when I was a child. The few times I had a physical challenge during childhood, my mom and dad would talk to me about spiritual ideas. I would go to sleep and wake up healed.)

Once I started praying and listening for God’s ideas, the healing occurred very quickly. The pain was gone the next day.

For me, prayer is most effective when it’s an active communing with divinity—listening for His ideas and not my own. So it’s not that I have to force out the “bad” thoughts, like discouragement, self-condemnation and resentment, with my own good thoughts.I don’t remember the specific ideas I read in the Bible and Science and Health but when I think about this healing, the quality of purity stands out. One of the beatitudes says, “Blessed are the pure in heart: for they shall see God” (Matt. 5:8 ). It was this purifying of my thought—my renewed consciousness of God’s presence in my life and His love for me—that resulted in healing.

Prayer means feeling God’s presence and power by letting in the Christ light that doesn’t leave room for anything but God. Healing comes as the material sense of ourselves, what Christian Science terms “mortal mind,” yields to the fact that each of us is actually spiritual and pure, uncontaminated by any form of evil.

This statement from Science and Health illustrates the process, which results in permanent healing, “The mortal mind through which Truth appears most vividly is that one which has lost much materiality—much error—in order to become a better transparency for Truth. Then, like a cloud melting into thin vapor, it no longer hides the sun” (295:19 ).

Of course this discovery of God’s presence in one’s life is a continuing journey. Although this healing occurred over 10 years ago and has been permanent, I’m still seeing more of divine Truth each day. Church participation continues to help me become a better transparency for Truth, which blesses every aspect of my life.

The quality of purity:

Science and Health
15:26-27

King James Bible
I Tim. 4:12