Real beauty—real healing
It was summer, and I was at my favorite camp playing capture the flag.
I was having so much fun running around with my friends that I didn’t notice I had run right through a patch of thorn bushes. Later that evening, when we were back at our cabin, one of my cabinmates pointed out that my legs were covered with red scratches. The scratches were a bit inflamed, and my skin was puffy with hives, but I hadn’t even noticed because I was having so much fun. I wasn’t worried, and my first thought was just to ignore it and go to bed. I didn’t want anything to take away from the joy I was feeling.
Students: Get
JSH-Online for
$5/mo
Every recent & archive issue
Podcasts & article audio
Mary Baker Eddy bios & audio
Every recent & archive issue
Podcasts & article audio
Mary Baker Eddy bios & audio
Right then, this sentence from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy came to mind: “The recipe for beauty is to have less illusion and more Soul, to retreat from the belief of pain or pleasure in the body into the unchanging calm and glorious freedom of spiritual harmony” (pp. 247–248).
I was having so much fun running around with my friends that I didn’t notice I had run right through a patch of thorn bushes.
This was something I had been thinking about all week because it was included in the weekly Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly. I had learned when I was younger that Soul, the focus of that week’s Lesson, is another name for God. So the recipe for beauty is to have more God in our lives—not that we can increase God’s presence, which is infinite, but we can always more fully recognize and acknowledge that presence. I felt that this was exactly what we were doing at camp, because this was a camp for Christian Scientists, and we were learning more about practicing Christian Science through our various adventures.
At the time, I was in middle school, and I was self-conscious—always comparing myself to images in popular teen magazines. Compared to those images, I felt less than beautiful; but through reading the Bible Lesson on “Soul,” I was beginning to understand that true beauty is much more than skin deep. In the Bible, beauty is expressed through spiritual qualities such as grace, perseverance, courage, spiritual sturdiness, and strength of character. These traits, along with the joy that I had felt while playing capture the flag with my friends, represented my true beauty.
With this verse on my mind, I fell asleep.
The next morning, when I got dressed for the day, I noticed that my legs were totally clear. There wasn’t a scratch or a scar on them, and the hives were gone, too. It was like I had been washed clean, and all that remained was perfect, untouched skin. Truly, I was grateful, but I was also in awe of Soul, God, and amazed that I had been healed so quickly!
The next morning, when I got dressed for the day, I noticed that my legs were perfectly clear. I was in awe of Soul, God, and amazed that I had been healed so quickly!
The spiritual understanding that I gained and the realization that each week’s Bible Lesson is filled with practical, healing ideas have stuck with me ever since. I later recognized as well that real, spiritual beauty remains perfect and intact in every individual creation of God.
In the years since, as I’ve grown in my understanding of Christian Science, I’ve understood more deeply that this healing wasn’t some kind of divine touch-up. Instead, it revealed the ever-present spiritual beauty and perfection that every one of us possesses as an expression of God, Spirit, who is infinite good.
That’s not to say that this one healing ended all of my struggles related to beauty and self-confidence; it didn’t. But it did give me a foundation to build on, and as I’ve reflected on it over the years, it continues to teach me even deeper spiritual lessons.