Through prayer in Christian Science many healings have come...

Mary H. Reed

Through prayer in Christian Science many healings have come to me through the years—of pains in my left side as a teenager, and later of pains in my right side; healings of mumps, of an open sore on my leg, of backache, of neck and shoulder pain, and of encrusted eyelids. This latter healing came about to my happy surprise as I finished reading Mary Baker Eddy's Prose Works. Reading this was an inspiring and growing experience for me when I was a young housewife. After many years of removing a crustlike secretion from my eyelids each morning, this healing was a welcome event.

For several years while I was teaching school there were daily headaches. In the mornings I'd wake clearheaded and immediately start pondering the definition of God (see Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mrs. Eddy, p. 587). This effort to understand my relation to Him was also an attempt to stave off any headache. Nonetheless, within a few minutes the suffering would usually begin. One day I heard about a little boy who had headaches, and I thought to myself, "Someone must have told him about headaches—because how could a child, without the pressures of a job, know about a headache?" This reaction alerted me to what I was thinking to be the cause of my problem. I became much more persistent in studying Science and Health and the Bible, and radical in rebuking the false beliefs that responsibility and stress could be the root of anything harmful and real. I was completely healed—long before retiring from teaching—and have been free of headaches for about twenty-five years.

Another problem during those same years was a persistent, though quiet, cough. We were required as teachers to have a chest X-ray every two years. I was glad each time that nothing wrong was found. I continued to pray, however, about the chronic situation. One day when I entered a room coughing, a friend in an adjoining room called out, "Is that you, Mary?" I was startled at being identified by a physical trouble, and made a great effort after that to understand and express more of my true identity as a child of God. I pondered much my being the representative of Mind, the expression of Life, the image of Love, the likeness of Truth, the manifestation of Spirit, the effect of Principle, and the identity of Soul. And I read the Bible to learn more about Christ Jesus and the way he thought about things. I was healed over twenty years ago. Although I've had a few colds since then, two or three with a cough, they did not last, and I am grateful for continuing freedom.

I was completely healed ... and have been free of headaches for about twenty-five years.

One evening in the seventies I discovered a lump in my chest and immediately told my husband, who was very good at refusing to give material symptoms credibility, so that we could both pray. My first thought about the discovery was that I was not going to let it be a fear like that mentioned in Science and Health, "a stage of fear so excessive that it amounts to fortitude" (p. 375). I began reading this book every evening after the school preparations were done, aware that my husband was also supporting me prayerfully. As I read I became more convinced than ever before of man's spiritual nature. By Easter of that spring, the lump had disappeared, and I felt full of joy on that Easter morning.

This remarkable religion is a way of living that is never static, because we're always learning more about God's great love for all of us and how to express it better.

Mary H. Reed
San Bernardino, California

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