Mary Baker Eddy says in the...

Ida May Schomaker

Mary Baker Eddy says in the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health (p. 152), "Truth has a healing effect, even when not fully understood." This was proved to me when I had an instantaneous healing of the smoking habit. I had been a heavy smoker for a number of years. Even when awakening during the night, I would feel the urge to smoke.

My fiancé, who later became my husband, did not smoke; so I felt ashamed that I did and tried many human methods to break the habit. But always I ended up with smoking even more.

Then one day as I was coming out of a drug store after buying some cigarettes, I met a Christian Science practitioner. I was embarrassed to have him know that I smoked and put my cigarettes behind me. Then, realizing that he must have seen what I had, I remarked that I had been trying to stop smoking, but could not.

He said, "Do you really want to stop?"

I answered, "Yes, I do."

That was all that was said, but on my way to my apartment I thought how ridiculous it was to let a little piece of white paper, with some tobacco wrapped inside, make such a slave of me.

That was the end of my smoking. I have not the slightest remembrance of what happened to the cigarettes I had bought. Some time later I was having dinner with an old friend who offered me a cigarette, and I replied that I did not smoke. And up to that moment I had completely forgotten that I ever had smoked. That was twenty-three years ago, and I have never had the slightest desire to smoke in all the years since.

When my husband passed on three years ago, I was stunned and unable to pray. There just did not seem to be any God. And the thought presented itself, "Christian Science is a beautiful theory, but it just doesn't work."

I resented any statements of truth quoted to me, for they seemed so meaningless at the time. I shed no tears; neither did I sleep or eat for two days. I had called a friend who is a Christian Science practitioner in another state as soon as I could reach the telephone. It was a few days before her letter reached me. It came about an hour before the funeral service was to be held.

The emphatic truth in that letter awakened me, and from that moment on I was freed from the belief of grief. My friend had written of my husband: "He is not dead; he is alive." It was clear to me that Life could never die, because God does not die. Therefore spiritual man is always alive and expressing God, for God would be incomplete if any aspect of His spiritual selfhood were extinct.

Part of Mrs. Eddy's definition of "death" in Science and Health reads (p. 584), "An illusion, the lie of life in matter; the unreal and untrue; the opposite of Life." Farther on in the same definition she says, "Any material evidence of death is false, for it contradicts the spiritual facts of being."

The service read by a Christian Scientist was to me an inspiration. I have felt this inspiration ever since. Once or twice since that time when the thought of loneliness has tried to creep in, I have been able quickly to dispose of it by feeling a closeness to God; then the spiritual reality of Life and being was clearly realized.

Mrs. Eddy's revelation of Truth is wonderful: but until one actually makes the truth his own by demonstration, he does not experience the real inspiration. I am thankful to have proved again that Christian Science does work.

My sincere gratitude is expressed for Mrs. Eddy's revelation and for the many who contribute the wonderful articles written for our periodicals.—(Mrs.) Ida May Schomaker, Laguna Beach, California.

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

Christian Science was introduced...

January 23, 1960

Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit