It was the toughest hill in the whole cross-country ski race: the Powerline Hill. My two friends and I squared our shoulders, took a deep breath, and started up the infamous slope. Spectators lined the path to cheer on the 10,000 skiers who had signed up to do the race. Drummers at the top of the hill pounded out rhythms to match our strides as we all shouted out encouragement to each other. The feeling when we made it to the top—amazing! I love this stuff. This is the kind of adventure that demands all your heart and soul.

It also reminds me how to pursue healing in Christian Science. When I am seeking healing, I gather inspiration and take time to commune with God. If needed, I call on others to help: a Christian Science practitioner, a Christian Science nurse, or other experienced Christian Scientists. Closing the door on all self-doubt and speculations, I become open to learning more about God’s loving presence. His angel messages—inspiration and healing ideas—encourage and enlighten me. Thought shifts, and the human condition changes as a result of my elevated prayer. Healing happens.

It wasn’t always this way.

In fact, there was a time when I felt embarrassed, even ashamed if I was sick. I felt that if I got sick, it must mean I was not a very good Christian Scientist. I reasoned that if I was really practicing correctly, I should be able to heal like Jesus did. And if I wasn’t able to do that, and had to call a practitioner, then I was in really bad shape. If I ever needed a Christian Science nurse, I was near hopeless!

Then I came across a Bible story in the book of John, in which the disciples had a teachable moment. The Message translation explains: “Walking down the street, Jesus saw a man blind from birth. His disciples asked, ‘Rabbi, who sinned: this man or his parents, causing him to be born blind?’ Jesus said, ‘You’re asking the wrong question. You’re looking for someone to blame. There is no such cause-effect here. Look instead for what God can do’ ” (John 9:1–3).

I had asked myself those same questions when I was sick. Who sinned? What did I do wrong? Was it something I picked up from someone else?

Jesus’ response to his disciples’ question shifted my thought 180 degrees. I was asking the wrong questions. I was looking for someone or something to blame. And if I found that I was to blame, I would feel ashamed of myself! But what a shift: Jesus presented these challenges as opportunities to glorify God.

Christian Science empowers the patient by making him or her the center of the healing activity.

Sometimes I have had healings right away. And on occasions when healing has taken more time, I’ve gone back to my experiences in the outdoors. In the cross-country ski race where those spectators cheered us on and those drummers matched our stride to encourage us to keep going—they were like Christian Science nurses and practitioners, those who commit to seeing us through the challenges until we realize our full right to perfect health. I now feel free to have others join in my healing journey.

Mary Baker Eddy’s discovery of Christian Science and its divine system of healing does not accommodate fear or shame. Christian Science empowers the patient by making him or her the center of the healing activity. The patient is in charge. The patient is the one who has the responsibility and the option of calling an experienced Christian Scientist for help. Healing is central to Church, so the patient is really in the center of the activity of Church and is in a position to call on all the resources of Church to demonstrate practical and effective healing.

In Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, we read: “If students do not readily heal themselves, they should early call an experienced Christian Scientist to aid them. If they are unwilling to do this for themselves, they need only to know that error cannot produce this unnatural reluctance” (p. 420). It is natural and normal to employ this type of aid.

Recently, I had occasion to call on others for help. My husband had just left on a trip, and I was alone in our house. I fell asleep that evening with a headache, and when I woke up, I found that I was fast losing mobility in my arm and feeling dizzy and nauseated. I called my husband, and we both felt that I should call a practitioner as well as a Christian Science nurse.

The Christian Science nurse soon came and picked me up, and I spent the night at a Christian Science nursing facility. I was greeted with the nursing staff’s calm and happy expectation that all was well, and one of the Christian Science nurses made sure that I had all the hymns and reading materials I needed. I had a team of cheerful angels working right alongside me, and by the next day I had recovered. There was no embarrassment at all at having faced this challenge, just a loving partnership in which we were all blessed.

There is a hymn that sings out, “Partners of a glorious hope, / Lift your hearts and voices up” (Charles Wesley, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 273). As a practitioner, I have felt such satisfying joy in partnering with someone who calls on me for healing prayer. What wonderful things we learn from even our most tenacious challenges, and what victories we share. I love this work!

Not one of us is alone when it comes to Christian Science healing. We are created in relationship to one another. The first two words of the Lord’s Prayer, “Our Father,” remind us that we are all linked by God. We all can walk together in holy work, sharing with the world that healing of all ills is possible because God—Love, Truth, and Spirit—is always with us.

It has been so necessary and helpful to drop a shame-based model of healing, and take on the adventure-based model in which we find every challenge an opportunity to dig into spiritual reality. Mary Baker Eddy reminds us: “We live in an age of Love’s divine adventure to be All-in-all.... to-day lends a new-born beauty to holiness, patience, charity, love” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 158).