Our beloved Leader, Mary Baker...

Dorothy Belle Lingenfelter

Our beloved Leader, Mary Baker Eddy, writes in the textbook, "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures" (p. 152): "The author's medical researches and experiments had prepared her thought for the metaphysics of Christian Science. Every material dependence had failed her in her search for truth; and she can now understand why, and can see the means by which mortals are divinely driven to a spiritual source for health and happiness."

It was after many years as a registered medical nurse that I was divinely driven to Christian Science, which reveals God as the source of health and happiness.

My heart overflows with gratitude for the first healing I experienced in Christian Science. I had worn glasses for eighteen years. When I accepted Science and thereby put away a flagrant prejudice against it, I was able to lay aside the glasses; and I never wore them again. That was more than ten years ago.

Early in my study I often wondered why Mrs. Eddy gives Principle as a synonym for God. This question was answered when I began to understand more about Love. In I Corinthians we read (13:8), "Charity never faileth." This charity, or love, expresses the Principle of Christian Science. It was a glimpse of divine Principle, Love, that brought about the following beautiful healing.

One autumn day I was raking leaves in the yard. I did not notice a small branch of a tree hanging low, and as I raised my head very suddenly, this branch pierced one of my eyeballs. In excruciating pain I managed to get to my room, where I walked the floor declaring the truth. At first I could not read our textbook because of tears. However, the desire for relief was so urgent that I persisted for about two hours in my effort to read Science and Health, seeking a specific truth that would heal me. The word Principle seemed to stand out on each page, and I remembered this statement in the Preface (p. xi): "The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus' time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation."

I realized at that moment that I was in reality as perfect then as I had been before the accident, because this perfect Principle was ever maintaining my being. Instant healing came. My family had been unaware of the event, and when I appeared at the dinner table after preparing the meal, I rejoiced silently with God that there was not a visible trace of the discord that had been so painful. I also rejoiced that the healing had come about entirely through spiritual means.

For membership in The Mother Church, for the opportunity to serve in a branch church, for class instruction from a consecrated teacher, and for all the avenues through which Christian Science is presented to the world, I am humbly grateful.—(Mrs.) Dorothy Belle Lingenfelter, Marion, Illinois.

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Testimony of Healing

Bless the Lord, O my soul, and...

November 7, 1953

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