My children and I have had innumerable evidences of the healing and protecting power of the Father's great love!

I am particularly grateful for proofs I had while I was serving a term as Second Reader in a branch church. I found that no matter what untoward problem presented itself, when it was faced not as a material condition but as a he—a suggestion of a mind that does not exist, since God is the only Mind—it dissolved into nothingness. I was always able to be in my place at the service. Some of the healings during this period were of broken bones (within twenty-four hours), flu, loss of voice, and loss of hearing.

The children have been healed of ear infections, chronic nosebleeds, allergy, birthmark, impetigo, so-called childhood diseases, tumor, and drug usage. I am grateful for all our healings but even more for the spiritual regeneration that has accompanied them.

I am unspeakably grateful for the growing understanding of the fatherhood and motherhood of Love, God, and of His tender care for all His ideas. One glimpse of the healing power of divine Love came several years ago.

One of my daughters was ill for several weeks with a severe allergy. Prayerful help was being given by a Christian Science practitioner, and much purification was going on in my consciousness and in the child's, but the symptoms seemed to grow continually worse. The condition spread, and she was unable to take nourishment except through a straw. I began to feel quite discouraged, never doubting that Christian Science heals, but discouraged that I couldn't see the truth clearly enough for the child to be well. This I recognized as a false sense of responsibility asserting itself.

One day, after talking with the practitioner, I turned to God with all my heart, declaring that divine Mind was revealing what I needed to see. Soon my thought began to clear, and I asked myself some very basic questions: How did Jesus heal? What did he see? What did Mrs. Eddy see that enabled her to heal as Christ Jesus said his followers would heal?

I recalled an inspiring experience given in Twelve Years with Mary Baker Eddy by Irving C. Tomlinson. A mother tells of the glimpse she had of "real Mother-Love" as expressed by Mrs. Eddy, and the healing results. (See p. 61.) I pondered this and prayed that I, too, might express this true sense of pure mother love. Then I asked myself: What did Mrs. Eddy perceive when looking at the child? The answer came from an account by one of her students, describing how her teacher healed. Mrs. Eddy said, as this student recalled (We Knew Mary Baker Eddy, First Series, p. 74): "I saw the love of God encircling the universe and man, filling all space, and that divine Love so permeated my own consciousness that I loved with Christlike compassion everything I saw."

Why, I thought, this love of God, this love that is God, is here right now, filling all space, all place. Therefore there can be no infection, no mental poison, no physical poison, only Love, everywhere! I truly felt the presence of divine Love enfolding the child and me and all. At that moment I heard the child saying she was hungry. She ate without the straw and without pain. The sores began to dry up immediately and were soon gone.

I could never express in words the gratitude I feel for Mrs. Eddy, who gave us the understanding of God's law of Love, and the rules that enable us to demonstrate this law as Jesus did. I am grateful, too, that my mother found and shared this most precious gift with my sister and me; and for the practitioners who have so lovingly and patiently worked with us. Christian Science has met my every need for over forty years.

(Mrs.) Patricia McMillin Bennett
Sarasota, Florida