Many will answer yes. Through Christian Science treatment depression has lifted. Pain has disappeared. Fear has dissolved. But others who are seeking healing may answer no. Full freedom has not yet come. Are you one of those who have a specific need for healing in their lives but haven't yet been lifted out of the difficulty?

It may well be that deeper spiritual insights are needed. Perhaps a stronger, more consistent and faithful adherence to spiritual truths is called for. Maybe the need is for more thorough moral regeneration—a spiritual transformation of character. But there is another possibility. An important one. You may be healed and haven't yet recognized or accepted the healing.

Sometimes an individual suffers unnecessarily. He suffers because he believes the healing is yet to come, when in fact it has already taken place. He has been so convinced of imprisonment that he doesn't readily admit his own freedom. And in some instances the physical evidence of disease may even seem more pronounced, though the healing has actually been accomplished. A mental chemicalization, or change of thought from a material to a spiritual underpinning, may be under way. This of course is no excuse for the healer to evade the necessary work when a genuine transformation has not yet taken place.

Mrs. Eddy, a powerful healer, writes of instances when the individual has been healed but needs still to admit it: "Whenever an aggravation of symptoms has occurred through mental chemicalization, I have seen the mental signs, assuring me that danger was over, before the patient felt the change; and I have said to the patient, 'You are healed,'—sometimes to his discomfiture, when he was incredulous. But it always came about as I had foretold." ^{Science and Health, p. 169;}

It is essential for us to understand how to assess our condition. Be sure the discord is not being perpetuated by an attitude that assumes disease simply because the physical evidence has not disappeared. The healer should be wise enough to pursue the lies of evil until they are proved false. But he need not pursue those claims once they have been destroyed with divine Truth. To continue a battle that has already been won would rob us of the joy of triumph. There is a time for wrestling with and overcoming the error. But there is also a time for claiming the victory and gratefully rejoicing over what we have earned by our increased understanding of God. A spiritually mental rather than a material sign should determine that time.

Fundamental to Christian Science treatment is an understanding that existence is essentially mental. The body objectifies a general state of materialistic thought. When the body is not functioning properly, the healer aims to bring thought into line with a more accurate expression of divine consciousness. God is Mind, and true consciousness is Godlike. The substance of our individual being is the likeness of Mind. A mortal sense of Mind is, by its nature, discordant. The need is always to bring transformation to individual consciousness. The need is never to force matter into a better condition.

Sometimes we may become so engrossed with the physical evidence of disease that we find ourselves working for a change in matter. But that would be missing the primary point—and following an unpredictable path. First, because the discord is always falsely mental rather than material. Second, because the material sign would so mesmerize us that we may fail to recognize the mental sign.

A healing is not necessarily complete just because the material evidence is better—nor is healing necessarily absent because the material evidence is temporarily worse. We must look for the mental signs, assuring us that danger is over. Too often when the danger is gone—when we have been planted on a more spiritual basis of existence—we cling to the mortal picture so vividly placed before us.

What are the mental signs? How can we know we are healed? The answer lies in an understanding of Christ. Mortal mind observes conditions of matter that are always in a very fluid state. This so-called mind is actually viewing its own identity—erratic, whimsical, volatile beliefs. But Christ, Truth, testifies permanently to the unalterable spiritual facts of being. Truth is unchanging perfection. The Christ reveals this fact to us.

When we allow the Christ to bring to light the substantial facts of true being, we can discern the mental signs—the spiritual assurance and certainty—that tell us of victory. Paul says, "Thanks be unto God, which always causeth us to triumph in Christ, and maketh manifest the savour of his knowledge by us in every place." ^{II Cor. 2:14;}

If there is more yet for us to learn, the light of the Christ causes that error to stand out in bold relief. It exposes evil as a lie and reveals the allness of divine Love. We are then able to recognize and feel the mental signs of healing—joy, inspiration, release, conviction.

Mortal mind would resist a discernment of the mental signs of healing. It would fix thought on the limited, the ignorant, perceptions of material sense. We can steadfastly affirm that God is resistless and that the Christ reveals this fact. Mrs. Eddy explains, "The Principle of Christ is divine Love, resistless Life and Truth." ^{The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 149.}

Are you healed? That question cannot be answered wholly by way of the physical evidence. The Christ shows us the accurate mental signs. Don't be intimidated by matter or talked out of your healing if you have actually won it.

Nathan A. Talbot