One evening earlier this summer, as I was sitting at a desk in a hotel room finishing some paperwork, I felt a tingling in my lower abdominal area. I had never felt anything like it before. The sensation soon grew into pain. I spent a few minutes in the bathroom, but the discomfort continued, and I began to be fearful about what might be happening to me.

The thought of my dad's difficulties with kidney stones, which had resulted in surgery some years back, flashed through my mind. My immediate concern was that I might possibly be dealing with the same condition.

Through years of studying Christian Science, however, I had learned that only what God gives to His creation is true and actual. And what God gives is invariably good and shows His love for us. So disease, pain, illness, can be viewed as errors of thought—lies—which dissolve through our understanding of God.

I called a Christian Science practitioner and asked for her prayer. What she said reassured me.

She told me that God was my Father, and that there couldn't be any hurt in His love for me. She also said that she would begin to pray specifically about the condition right away. I was grateful that this reinforced my desire to rely completely on God for healing.

I also began to pray myself, drawing on statements from the Bible and from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy about the entirely spiritual nature of God's creation. And I tried to steadfastly apply these ideas to my current circumstances. But it was only the beginning of the battle. The pain intensified, and in a short time, I was doubled over. I called the practitioner back, and asked her what I should do. In a calm, loving voice, she said: "Know that you are loved by God, and that His arms are around you now, holding you and loving you. I will continue to pray, and we'll have a wonderful healing tonight."

I wanted to do that, but all I could think about was what I might have done to bring on such a situation. I tried to pray further, but I wasn't able to focus. To make matters worse, no matter what position I tried to get in—sitting, standing, or lying down—there was no relief.

Then, I suddenly began to question my decision to trust prayer for healing, and wondered if I should be healing to a hospital. Had I made a mistake? But immediately on the heels of that question came the conviction, "No!" Asking that question, and getting that answer, brought me back to my love for God. I resolved to stand my ground in relying on God alone, and declared that I would do whatever it took to be healed through His leading and His love.

In my third call to the practitioner, I found myself pouring out my stress and fears. This blessed woman, her voice filled with compassion, encouraged me to wake up from the dream of suffering by affirming the fact that I was one with God. "You can't be separated from Him for even an instant. And His love is ALL!" she told me, and suggested I just focus on God's love for me.

That did it. I stopped trying to make a healing happen through willing it to come about, or through an exertion of any ability of my own. I kept my thoughts focused only on God, and on feeling His love for me. Within two or three minutes, I found the pain easing, and I was able to take a normal breath and stand up. Ten minutes later, I was lying in bed, and crying—with joy and relief. Less than an hour before, I had been thinking about calling an ambulance, and now I was completely free of pain.

A fourth call to the practitioner. "What did you do?" I asked. It was all gone—the pain, the fear—and now I was in bed ready to fall asleep. She replied, "I only saw what was true about you." She said she was never deceived by the illness and pain, which she knew were not true in God's eyes. "I saw you as one with God, and not as a hurting mortal." She ended by saying, "I told you we'd have a wonderful healing tonight."

The next morning, I woke up after sleeping for ten hours. I felt thoroughly refreshed, pain-free, and ready for my 12-hour work day. But it was more than a sound sleep from which I had wakened. My healing had truly been an awakening from the dream that pain and fear have any substantiality at all.

I feel grateful for this wonderful example of a practitioner's effective work, and for God's precious love.

Jerry Stevens
Kelso, Washington