In August 2010, I hiked to the summit of Mount Kilimanjaro and experienced a wonderful healing.

A few hours before we reached our second camp, I suddenly felt an acute abdominal pain. This was very alarming and distressing to me! Some friends and I had organized this trip together—three weeks in Tanzania, starting with seven days of hiking Kilimanjaro—and this was just the second day. At that moment I had no idea how I could reach the next camp.

My friends urged me to take some medication. I felt a huge responsibility to not ruin the trip for them and didn’t want to seem stubborn by refusing their help. So I took one of the pills they offered, hoping it would alleviate their fears for me. Immediately I felt worse. I doubled over and couldn’t take a single step. Whenever I tried to sit up, I suffered a lot of pain. I could not keep food or drink down, and slowly my strength seemed to drain away. The friend who had given me the medicine told me later that he had meant to give me a different pill. But, in a way, this wrong pill helped to shift me completely back to my usual approach to dealing with sickness—which is through prayer according to the teachings of Christian Science.

As a lifelong Christian Scientist, I had never needed medicine. I had always found fast relief through prayer by filling my thought with the truth of my real, spiritual being. And it always felt much more natural to trust fully in the great healing power of divine Love than to rely on medication.

I knew I needed some quiet time to myself. I lay on the ground for a little while as the others continued hiking. Eventually I could hike again, and I reached the camp just before sunset, along with the guide who had stayed behind with me.

Once I reached camp, I holed up in my sleeping bag, and my only wish was to enter the “closet” that Jesus talked about, where I could pray and find mental peace. He said, “When thou prayest, enter into thy closet, and when thou hast shut thy door, pray to thy Father which is in secret; and thy Father which seeth in secret shall reward thee openly” (Matthew 6:6). 

A tent at 12,600 feet is a wonderful closet—I can attest to that! To enter into the closet signified to me entering into the conscious understanding of the healing power of Spirit, God, and the truth that I am in God’s all-encircling arms. This truth is manifested tangibly in freedom, health, harmony, immunity, joy, and security—in being untouched by and invulnerable to the so-called laws of matter.

Jesus’ instruction beyond entering this mental closet was to “shut thy door.” Never before had I shut the door on limited, fearful thinking so radically as I did in this little tent. It felt like entering a sanctuary, leaving behind every thought of fear, time, or pain. I quietly listened to the audio version of that week’s Bible Lesson found in the Christian Science Quarterly, containing passages from the Bible and from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. One particular citation from Science and Health greatly helped me, and I held on to it tightly. It refers to “Spirit which is God Himself and Man’s only lawgiver” (p. 435). I continually affirmed that God, good, is my only lawgiver.

I focused on the Bible Lesson and didn’t allow myself to ruminate over the problem. I shut the door on thoughts such as, “Maybe it’s food poisoning,” and, “What if I’m not better but worse tomorrow morning?” I said to these thoughts, “No, thank you; my door of thought is shut to fear, pain, sorrow, and doubt. No open hours.”

I remember feeling completely secure in my mental closet of prayer. I felt that nothing could bother me there. I had no more worries about tomorrow. I felt such a readiness to be in the now—in the eternal good, or God, where everything is completely well. I knew the nature of the problem was not physical but mental. 

I fell asleep with the Bible Lesson in my ear. The next morning I woke up completely well. The guides had told me the night before that they were convinced we would have to turn back. They were astonished when they saw me recovered in the morning. I even ate my birthday cake—which the guides had lovingly prepared as a surprise for the previous evening—for breakfast. Afterward we continued to the next camp; we hiked eight hours that day without any problems. I was filled with gratitude and continued holding to the thought that God is my only lawgiver.

The truths in the Bible Lesson continued to support me in the days that followed. Kilimanjaro is overwhelming in beauty and grandness, but to feel near to God and to the truth that God is our only lawgiver touched my heart even more. This insight has stayed with me for many years now, strengthening my trust in God and helping me share Christian Science with others.

Christiane Heer
Marquartstein, Germany