How thankful I am to God for healing my diseases and...

Cora A. Arbuthnot

How thankful I am to God for healing my diseases and for this wonderful truth as revealed to us through our text–book, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures." I always loved to read the Bible, but did not understand it then as I do now; and it is much more beautiful to me. All the promises now seem so true and real, and they are all for us today. As we read in Jeremiah, "I will restore health unto thee, and I will heal thee of thy wounds, saith the Lord." I hope that this testimony may give courage to some hopeless sufferer.

My case was considered hopeless, according to materia medica, for my physician (to whom I am grateful for his efforts to restore me to health) at last told me that the less medicine I took, the better. I realized then that God alone could cure me, but how this was to be accomplished I did not know. I believed that, as James says, "the prayer of faith shall save the sick, and the Lord shall raise him up;" but I did not have that faith. In February, 1906, I was taken sick with a severe gastric disorder, and a physician kept me on a strict diet for five months, but this and the drugs did not benefit me. We then took a trip overland to the Yosemite and were gone eight weeks. I seemed to be much benefited for a while, but in November I took cold and all the symptoms returned. I gradually grew worse, and the following February the doctor pronounced my case a serious affection of the stomach and both lungs.

About three weeks before I turned to Christian Science, the disease which had affected the lungs appeared in my throat, and I continued to fail until the latter part of April, when I gave up all hope, for my prayers had apparently not been answered. The doctor could do no more for me, but I could not be resigned to leaving my husband and three little ones. In my anguish I cried aloud to God, and He answered me, for in the morning my husband went to see a friend, and together they concluded that Christian Science was the only help for me. That afternoon this friend went with me to a practitioner, who gave me treatment, then told me to eat anything I wanted. I ate for supper the same as the family had, and it did not hurt me; nor has food ever hurt me since. Three days later, when my maid left me, I cleaned a room, and have done all my housework ever since.

I was healed in twenty-three treatments, given between April 27 and July 2, 1907. There can be no doubt about my healing, for on July 26 of the same year I walked, with two other woman as my companions, to the top of a mountain (10,500 feet above sea level) and returned the same day, a distance of over twelve miles. This promise was with me all that day: "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." I can truly say that I was not tired that night and never have been since my healing. When half a mile from camp, it became so dark that we could not see the path, and four times we waded a stream, which varied in depth from six to eighteen inches. Even then I did not fear, for I remembered these promises: "I will never leave thee, nor forsake thee;" "I will instruct thee and teach thee in the way which thou shalt go." We were led along safely, and at the first camp we met a party in search for us, as they supposed we were lost or too weary to return. The next day I was as well as usual. I made the same trip about three weeks later, with a party of young people, coming down from the top in two hours and five minutes.

I thank God not only for the physical healing, but for the joy and peace which I have gained, and for the understanding of our heavenly Father, and His willingness to answer prayer. I used to "ask, and receive not," for I asked "amiss." Now I am learning how to "ask in faith, nothing wavering," so that when my children come to me with reports of ailments or accidents, I can receive an answer to my prayer. Our baby, at the age of two and a half years, had a most serious attack one evening. I went to the telephone and asked a Christian Science practitioner to treat him, and when I returned to the child he was coming out of the attack. That night he had no fever, whereas, before, under such conditions, we usually had to sit up most of the night and give him medicine. A few days later, he began to have symptoms of the same trouble, and he said, "Mama, pray for me." I took him to the next room, and in about ten minutes he was able to eat his supper.

My daily desire is that I may so live as to be worthy of all these blessings and many others, including my own healing.

Mrs. Cora A. Arbuthnot, Pomona, Los Angeles Co., Cal.

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Testimony of Healing

It is six years since I first heard of Christian Science

September 25, 1909

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