“Immersing myself in the testimonies…”

Immersing myself in the testimonies from the 1943 issues of the Sentinel lifted my thought into the healing consciousness behind them, into the expectation that with God all things are possible, and reinforced my own study and practice of Christian Science.

For example, a few weeks ago my sister asked me to pray for my mother who, well into her nineties, was suffering from the flu and had stopped eating. Several people had expressed the thought that this might be the end of the road for her. Meanwhile, my sister, who lives with my mother, also had the flu and was feeling completely overwhelmed by the situation.

Trusting in the effectiveness of Christian Science treatment and prayer, as demonstrated over and over again in the 1943 accounts of healing, I felt reassured that a seemingly sick and dying mother and sick and distraught sister were not what was really going on. 

From a spiritual perspective we are all beloved children of God, never separated from, or outside of, Love’s comforting presence and care. Disease is illusory, an aggressive mental suggestion rather than an actual physical phenomenon. Likewise, death also is ultimately unreal, an erroneous belief that eternal Life could ever come to an end. “Man’s individual being can no more die nor disappear in unconsciousness than can Soul, for both are immortal” (SH 427:5-7).

As I prayed along these lines for the next several days, I continued to read the testimonies for encouragement and inspiration. By that time my mother was eating normally again and feeling much better. During a visit with her, out of the blue she looked into my eyes and, childlike, said with clarity and quiet conviction, “We will always know each other.” I was in awe. It felt like a priceless gift from God. 

That evening, however, feelings of sorrow and loss engulfed me and I called a practitioner for support. Hearing of my experience earlier in the day, she responded, “You can feel a deep, deep sense of gratitude to feel so at one with God and with your mother. It was the Divine communicating through her. It’s holy ground. That will be with you forever. And it will be with your mother forever, too.”

Instantly the heaviness that had been weighing me down vanished. I felt buoyant again with joy and gratitude and an overriding sense of God’s love that filled me with the inspiration and strength to resume working on my own. Soon all was well once more with both my mother and my sister and in some significant ways even better than before.

As seen in each of the Sentinel testimonies, this is one more instance of divine Mind breaking through the hypnotic spell of mortal mind’s mistaken perception of things to reveal a very different spiritual reality, with healing results.