For many years my experience...

Rose Maxwell

For many years my experience has been enriched and blessed through the study of Christian Science. I have been healed of the need for wearing glasses, of a severely sprained ankle, of chronic lack, of discordant human relations in my work, and of sorrow when loved ones have passed from sight.

I should like to tell of a healing which occurred several years ago and which has contributed more to m spiritual growth than has any other. For many months I suffered severe and constant internal pain. I had help at times from different Christian Science practitioners, and f shall always be grateful for their patience and steadfastness. I feel that the work of each contributed to the final victory, even though I had to take the last steps alone with God.

One day I was utterly discouraged. I turned to God with all my heart and prayed to know what I must do to gain my freedom. The answer came clearly in words something like this: Only two things are necessary to gain any healing. First, study to gain a better understanding of God and of His perfect, spiritual creation and secondly, strive to live that understanding in thought, word, and deed. I knew this was my answer, and I resolved to begin to follow this directive that very day.

I saw too that the difficulty had been constantly in my thinking from the time I awakened in the morning till I went to sleep at night. And, of course, as long as it was so consistently a part of my consciousness, it would tend to continue in my experience. Even when I saw the necessity of ruling it out of my thinking, at first it seemed an impossible task. But as I prayed earnestly once more, the answer came: Put something good in its place. And I saw this good must be unselfed love for God and His children.

I had done much studying during those difficult months. But I saw now that my work must be from a higher standpoint. I remembered that in writing of her own search for Truth, Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, p. 109), "The search was sweet, calm, and buoyant with hope, not selfish nor depressing." I decided to take this statement as my inspiration. And to make sure that my seeking was not selfish, I resolved to apply every truth I read, not to myself alone but also to all mankind.

I found a great joy in declaring; day after day that God's universe was at that very moment spiritual and perfect and must ever remain so; that all of His ideas reflected the one intelligent, loving Mind, and therefore war and strife were impossible; that because man is a spiritual idea, he lives in Mind, not in a physical body that can become disordered and diseased; and that every idea was not only at that very moment but forever joyously and completely satisfied.

I became so engrossed in this work that I forgot my own difficulty; so I never knew just when the healing came. But I know that it came when I was "willing rather to be absent from the body, and to be present with the Lord" (II Cor. 5:8), and it was complete and has been permanent. I am increasingly grateful to God, to Christ Jesus, and to our beloved Leader.—(Miss) Rose Maxwell, Seattle, Washington.

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