I feel impelled to express my...

Susanne Silvay

I feel impelled to express my gratitude for Christian Science and for the innumerable blessings I have experienced through its healing agency. My first healing was a memorable one, and one that was to remain a beacon light for me when in later years I passed through deep waters.

From early childhood I had known of Christian Science, for my mother was an earnest student. I had not read the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" by Mrs. Eddy, however, nor paid much attention to the subject beyond thinking that if anything ever became the matter with me I should prefer to have Christian Science rather than any other form of treatment.

When I was a girl of seventeen I suffered from an alarming condition of the throat. Without warning I would lose my voice and be unable to make the slightest sound. In the classroom it was embarrassing to be called upon and to be unable to answer. The spells became more frequent, and my chest felt as though there were a heavy weight upon it.

My mother asked me if I should like to have Christian Science treatment, and I went with her to see a practitioner who was also a teacher of Christian Science. The practitioner gave me a treatment and asked me to return the next day, for she wanted to talk to me.

The following morning she spoke to me lovingly and simply about Christian Science. She pointed out that as God's child I could not express anything but Him, that voice and speech are qualities of Mind; therefore they cannot be lost, diminished, or impaired. She gave me another treatment, and I left her home feeling happier than I had for some time. I boarded a cross-town trolley which was empty save for the conductor and motor-man. Suddenly I felt as though a palpable weight was lifted from my chest and the whole streetcar seemed filled with light. I was healed, and I knew it. Half an hour later I ran into my home calling at the top of my voice, "Mother, I'm healed!" There has never been a return of the difficulty. While this experience made a deep and lasting impression upon me and I often, perhaps unwisely, repeated it, I am sorry to say I did not then become a student of Christian Science.

A few years later, however, just as I was about to enter a career for which I had been preparing, a severe physical difficulty appeared. Because of an internal displacement, I was unable to lead a normal life. I became an invalid, and spent most of my days lying down. I was afraid to make any plans, because they nearly always had to be broken at the last moment.

I then turned earnestly to the study of Christian Science, and was so greatly benefited that I was able to join a branch church and take part in its activities. Although I was greatly helped and comforted, and did not once fail to receive aid when I asked for it in Christian Science. I still suffered frightening attacks of numbness, heart palpitation, and fainting. I did not have a physician's diagnosis, so no name was given to these attacks. I can never be grateful enough for the work of the faithful practitioners who helped me at different times, and who refused to recognize defeat or discouragement; and for my family, who surrounded me with such love and protection that only a few persons realized the struggle I was experiencing.

Although my complete healing was a matter of many months, during these months I had many instantaneous proofs of God's power and protection. Gradually I became conscious that the old errors which had held me in bondage for so long had fallen away from me like an old cloak. I had at last glimpsed the reality of being. As our Leader, Mrs. Eddy, says on pages 226 and 227 of Science and Health, "But I pressed on through faith in God, trusting Truth, the strong deliverer, to guide me into the land of Christian Science, where fetters fall and the rights of man are fully known and acknowledged."

I am very grateful to God. The strength that I now enjoy is indeed evidence of "a new heaven and a new earth." Christian Science does heal completely and entirely, for it is the truth.—(Mrs.) Susanne Silvay, Santa Monica, California.

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