I am grateful for having been brought up by parents who were sincere students of Christian Science and passed along to me a love of the Bible and its teachings. It gave me a firm foundation on which to build my life, and a system of study and practice to help me in raising my own family.
During my childhood, I saw many instances of healing based solely on prayer. One that stands out to me happened when I was about 8 years old. I had a wart on my hand. My friends were put off by it and, at a time when many little girls liked to hold hands, nobody wanted to hold mine because of the wart. I was troubled by this. The mother of one of my friends told me that I’d better see a doctor, because the only way I would ever get rid of that kind of wart was to have it frozen off.
One day, my grandmother was visiting. She was a Christian Science practitioner, which means she devoted her life to praying for people to bring about healing for them. She and I sat and talked about the wart on my hand. She explained to me that, since I was a child of God, made in his image and likeness, that wart couldn’t possibly be a part of my being. It had no place in God’s perfect creation. A short while after this conversation, I had the sudden realization that the wart that appeared to be on my hand couldn’t possibly be there; in fact, it had never actually been there. The next time I thought to look at my hand, there was absolutely no sign of any growth of any kind. There was no scar, no mark, nothing. There was no period of time when the wart shrank or died and fell off; it simply disappeared.
My friends were in disbelief that I hadn’t had any physical treatment to have that wart removed, but I knew that it was through my grandmother’s understanding and prayer that it had disappeared. Her prayer had brought about a change in my thought that caused the physical condition to change.
Although a wart isn’t a big deal in terms of a threat to one’s health and well-being, the same principle that applied in the case of the wart applies to any physical condition a person may experience.
I had a similar result with my own children on several occasions. One that stands out occurred when our family was in California. Our daughter was 6 years old at the time, and we were having a wonderful time on vacation, visiting Disneyland and other attractions. At the end of our first day at Disneyland, our daughter began to cry, didn’t look well at all, and wanted to go back to our hotel room. In the middle of the night, she awoke speaking non-sensibly, obviously had quite a high fever, and seemed delirious. As any mother would be, I was at first very frightened. I held her and prayed to quiet my own fears.
As soon as it was possible to do so, I called a practitioner in the area to pray for my daughter. When the gentleman on the other end of the phone said, “I would be delighted to pray for your daughter” — obviously without any doubt that she would be healed — it made me feel much more confident and quelled my fear. I sent my husband and son on their way to enjoy the day’s activities, and told them to check back with us at about noon.
As the practitioner prayed, my daughter and I read articles specifically written for children from the Christian Science Sentinel. She always loved reading them, and we had an enjoyable time together doing this. As the morning wore on, her health improved dramatically. We spoke regularly to the practitioner to report on her progress. By the time my husband called, our daughter was completely well. The fever was totally gone, and her energy level was back to normal. We met up with my husband and son, and we all had a wonderful time. Our daughter ate dinner with great gusto, and we stayed at the amusement park until well into the evening. This healing was very quick and complete, and we were all very grateful for it. We had a wonderful time for the rest of our vacation.
These are just two instances of how Christian Science has been a blessing to me and my family. There have been many more. How could I not be grateful for it?
CB
Federal Way, Washington
