One day years ago, as my children and I were driving to the mall to shop for clothes, my throat began to feel sore. By the time we arrived, talking and swallowing were very painful. All I could think about was getting the shopping done quickly so I could go straight home to bed, leaving the dinner responsibility to my husband. 

As I sat watching my children try on clothes, my throat became increasingly sore, and my thought sank further into how wonderful my bed would feel and what a relief it would be to relinquish all motherly and wifely duties. When the children left the changing room to select different colors and sizes, I stood before the mirror and examined my throat. It was raw. 

Then I looked myself in the eye and said, “All right, if you want this sore throat, you may have it, but at least be clear that the soreness is in the mind, not the throat.” 

From my study of Christian Science, I knew that as a child of God, divine Spirit, created in His image, I was neither a material being nor subject to sickness. Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “Man was not created from a material basis, nor bidden to obey material laws which Spirit never made; his province is in spiritual statutes, in the higher law of Mind” (p. 307). I knew that what I saw in the mirror was not the reflection of divine Mind (another name for God); therefore it was false—an illusion. 

We finished our purchases, and as we headed back to our car, my throat began to feel better. By the time we started the drive home, I was completely healed of the sore throat. I was so happy, knowing that God, infinite Love, was caring for me, destroying the belief of illness. As I remember, I did everything I needed to do that evening with great joy and no sense of burden. 

Not long after that, the weekly Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly included this account: “When Jesus was come into Peter’s house, he saw his wife’s mother laid, and sick of a fever. And he touched her hand, and the fever left her: and she arose, and ministered unto them” (Matthew 8:14, 15). 

When reading this account in the past, I’d thought in jest that Jesus healed her because they wanted dinner. But after the quick healing of my sore throat, I, too, “arose, and ministered” to my family. Truth, God, rejuvenated both Peter’s mother-in-law and me. 

When the Christ heals, not only the ailment is healed but also all that is attached to it, leaving us morally and spiritually uplifted. Now, every time I read of Jesus healing Peter’s mother-in-law, I am reminded of this healing of a sore throat, and I feel such gratitude for God’s love. 

Martha Gauger
Chicago, Illinois, US

As our ideas of Deity advance to truer conceptions, we shall take in the remaining two thirds of God’s plan of redemption,—namely, man’s salvation from sickness and death. Our blessed Master demonstrated this great truth of healing the sick and raising the dead as God’s whole plan, and proved the application of its Principle to human wants.

—Mary Baker Eddy
The People’s Idea of God, p. 12