Testimony of Healing July 4, 1936 Issue

During the summer of 1914, while I was living in a...

Phyllis G. M. Thompson

During the summer of 1914, while I was living in a sparsely settled region, some Christian Science literature was given me to read. I read every word of it, and it was not long before I knew that this was the religion I had wished for all my life, especially in regard to healing. I was sure that it would heal a member of my family of a most disturbing fault, which I thought then was the cause of all my unhappiness. I soon learned that I had much need of healing myself, and that I must first remove the beam from my own eye. A violent and hasty temper was now seen as something possible to eradicate. I had always thought I could not control it, though on one could be more contrite or ashamed than I was after each outburst.

Numerous physical healing followed. A burned hand, caused by grasping an iron skillet handle which had been in the fire, was instantaneously healed through the understanding of a simple statement of Truth which had been read in a testimony a few days previous, for I had not, as yet, seen a copy of Science and Health. Attacks of bronchitis, recurring each winter with accompanying loss of voice, failed to return that winter. A sufferer from frequent colds the year around, I was joyous to find myself free. A goiter of twenty-five years' growth receded so gradually that it was completely gone before I took note of what was happening.

There were many testing times, and finally, after a long procession of them, a sense of injustice, resentment, and hurt feelings so clouded my vision that I lost, for a time, the guiding light of Christian Science. The trouble was mostly in my own consciousness, but I was too steeped in self-will to heed the counsel of wiser friends. After seven years, a severe illness of my husband, diagnosed as an infected liver, so filled him with fear of the physician's verdict that he asked for Christian Science treatment. A practitioner was sought and help was lovingly given. With the desire to assist I began to read to him articles in the Journal and Sentinel, and as improvement was manifested at once, a Christian Science Quarterly was purchased and the regular study of the Bible Lessons was begun. Needless to say, I was overjoyed to find that understanding returned to me, and my husband was healed within three weeks. Since then we have gone through deep waters, but never has my faith wavered. We have been wonderfully sustained through numerous trials, which our Leader tells us "are proofs of God's care" (Science and Health, p. 66).