Testimony of Healing January 19, 1974 Issue

Over a year ago I experienced a concrete demonstration of...

Chaffee Castleton

Over a year ago I experienced a concrete demonstration of God's law in operation, and of His power and grace to save me from a bad situation. I was on a Hawaiian Sunday scuba-diving excursion. From a large commercial fishing boat anchored in the marine roadstead off Diamond Head, I dived with scuba tank to the bottom, one hundred feet down. When I regained the surface about twenty minutes later, I saw that I had been taken by a strong ocean current about half a mile from the boat. I found myself in extremely choppy water, where two island-circling currents apparently met. I tried in vain to open the rusted gas valve on my Mae West, and was too out of breath to blow on the mouth valve. I had managed to drop my weight belt, but still carried the heavy air tank. My snorkel filled with water, and I was gasping violently for breath. A minute more of this, and I would have drowned. In this extremity I called, "Help me, Father." Through Christian Science I had learned that God made me and that He cares for each of His children at all times.

Suddenly I caught sight of a yacht under sail about 200 yards away, headed my way. Literally with my last breath I shouted to attract attention. My feeble cry was heard, for the yacht suddenly shifted course and headed straight for me. Willing hands leaned over the rail to grab my arms as the yacht swept past.

Thus I was saved from drowning. It was proof to me in my own experience of what Mrs. Eddy so beautifully states in relation to Christ Jesus' restoration of Lazarus in Science and Health (p. 493): "Who dares to doubt this consummate test of the power and willingness of divine Mind to hold man forever intact in his perfect state, and to govern man's entire action?" The helmsman of the rescuing yacht, a woman, told me later that her skipper had repeatedly ordered her to "luff off," which in this case meant to change course to better skirt the island. If she had obeyed him—and she said that she had always heretofore obeyed his slightest command—those on board would have neither seen nor heard me, a tiny dot far out in the agitated sea. She did not know why this time she disobeyed him; but, from my view, wasn't it because she was obeying a higher authority? The Bible tells us, "He sent from above, he took me, he drew me out of many waters" (Ps. 18:16).