"I’ve only begun to understand how much I need to pray daily, hourly"
/I had a healing a few weeks ago that took place over the previous 4 to 6 weeks. The symptoms caught me by surprise and were very much like what I’ve overheard vaguely of the virus. There was no diagnosis. I fell very ill and had a hard time thinking and praying for myself. I lost my usual position in dealing with material mesmerism – my ability to dismiss the lie of matter.
The healing took place over the month, as I mentioned, and it was day-by- day, hour-by-hour, minute-by-minute, a stand against fear and illusion. I knew I was fearful but had a hard time dismissing it. I wasn’t acting like an experienced Christian Scientist. But I still did believe in God as all-in-all and therefore was able to hold on.
My healing came by focusing on the truth. I had to go back to the point of reality, where I could remember that I am a child of God and act like God is all good. At some point, I remember realizing there is no virus. There is no place for evil in the kingdom of heaven. I do not have to fight something that is not true that is not God’s creation. I do not have to fear something that has no power where Truth is all-powerful. But this was not one grand event or thought; it was many days of little victories. I could feel the healing happening. And it was not just a healing of physical conditions; it was an immediate realization that I had a place to occupy and do good.
This healing wasn’t an intellectual study or full of arguments; instead, it was the activity of working out from infinite good. Finding that truth and sticking to it. Working out from God. The only real argument I came close to engaging was the Scientific Statement of Being more as a declaration than something I had to argue:
“There is no life, Truth or Substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all. Spirit is immortal Truth; matter is mortal error. Spirit is the real and eternal; matter is the unreal and temporal. Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.” (SH 468:10)
There were many resources that I had at my disposal. They included the lesson sermon, Sunday and Wednesday internet services from The Mother Church, preparation for Christian Science Association meeting, an email from our postponed lecturer, the book A Century of Christian Science Healing, and articles from JSH, both written and recorded. There were times it was hard to read, so being able to listen to truth read aloud was very helpful.
Slowly my understanding and my strength became more apparent and more reliable than the belief and the fear. Some of the points I studied were:
“How much more should we seek to apprehend the spiritual ideas of God, than to dwell on the objects of sense!” (SH 510:2–4)
“Let us rid ourselves of the belief that man is separated from God, and obey only the divine Principle, Life and Love. Here is the great point of departure for all true spiritual growth.” (SH 91:1–2, 5)
I was comforted by:
“Grace for today, Thou Love divine, / Famishing hearts and hopes to feed; / Blot out all fear, let Thy light shine / With tender warmth on all our need.” (Hymn 91:1, 2)
From A Century of Christian Science Healing, p. 238
“The candle of intellect requires occasional snuffing to throw the clear light of penetration on the page.”
“The real change, as Christian Scientists understand it, is from material-mindedness to spiritual-mindedness, from self-centered to God-centered thinking.”
I was also sustained by:
“Agree to disagree” with approaching symptoms of chronic or acute disease, whether it is cancer, consumption, or smallpox. Meet the incipient stages of disease with as powerful mental opposition as a legislator would employ to defeat the passage of an inhuman law. Rise in the conscious strength of the spirit of Truth to overthrow the plea of mortal mind, alias matter, arrayed against the supremacy of Spirit. Blot out the images of mortal thought and its beliefs in sickness and sin. Then, when thou art delivered to the judgment of Truth, Christ, the judge will say, “Thou art whole!” (SH 390:27)
I spent my time with ideas such as:
“Instead of blind and calm submission to the incipient or advanced stages of disease, rise in rebellion against them.” (SH 390:27–9)
“We should become more familiar with good than with evil, and guard against false beliefs as watchfully as we bar our doors against the approach of thieves and murderers.“ (SH 234:9–12)
After many ups and downs where I thought I was done with the problem only to fall again, I was feeling frustrated that I could not get free. At that point, I asked my wife, who is a practitioner, for help. She agreed to pray and directed me to the passages in Science and Health around page 421 regarding relapse. Here’s part of what I read:
“If a crisis occurs in your treatment, you must treat the patient less for the disease and more for the mental disturbance or fermentation, and subdue the symptoms by removing the belief that this chemicalization produces pain or disease. Insist vehemently on the great fact which covers the whole ground, that God, Spirit, is all, and that there is none beside Him. There is no disease.” (SH p. 421:11–18 (to 2nd .)
Soon, I was freed from the symptoms and regained my strength and discovered a new closer relationship with God. Now, I feel like I’ve only begun to understand how much I need to pray daily, hourly. I have this wonderful opportunity to recognize how I am in the kingdom of heaven. That recognition grows as I listen and follow Mind and Love’s direction.