“…even when you might feel humanly stuck or confused”

1. Yes. The major thing that was very clear to me after reading Century was that healing is a natural result of gaining a better understanding of God and of one’s relationship to God. It’s easy to focus on the desire for healing, but all these accounts underscore that healings are a result of the realization of our oneness with God. This sentence on page 239 of A Century of Christian Science Healing expresses it well: “The purpose of turning to God for healing is therefore not merely to change the evidence before the physical senses but to heal the deeper alienation of human thought from God.”

2. I really love the healing by Dwight S. Mills in which he had no human way of determining how to design a needed device for an airplane, but he knew that “God provides everything we need – if we are alert enough spiritually to discern it.” (p. 228) He began his prayer by thanking God for His goodness and then by realizing the Allness of infinite Mind and therefore his capacity as Mind’s reflection to express this same intelligence. His prayer was based on recognizing his unity with divine Mind. And then the solution to this seemingly unsolvable design challenge came, and it was perfect and complete. This is especially meaningful to me because in my business there have seemed to be a series of things like this – and I am in the midst of something like this at the moment – so I am finding this especially inspiring and helpful. My human impulse has been to try all the human solutions I can think of, but those have been exhausted, so it makes it clear what I need to do (and what I should always start by doing): turn to divine Mind. The last sentence in his testimony is very helpful: “To me this was a clear proof that when we listen for God’s guidance humbly and prayerfully, we can be led to the right answer, even though from a human standpoint the problem appears to be without a solution.” Listening to God with humility seems like a very important part of prayer regarding any human circumstance. I might not humanly know, but Mind knows, and this complete trust in God – not my human effort but yielding and listening to divine Mind – will bring healing.

There are so many other healings in this book I loved and found deeply inspiring, but I found the testimony by the railroad dining car supervisor on pages 184-188 particularly meaningful. He had a drinking and gambling problem but was moved out of love to read Science and Health out loud to his wife, who had fallen down the stairs. He found that it was benefiting him as well – the desire to drink left him that night – and after his wife was healed, he began studying Christian Science. He stopped smoking and gambling as well and really became a new man. I think what made a big impression on me was the love that this man expressed: how he was motivated by love to pick up the unopened Science and Health in his dresser and read to his wife, and later how he found a new way of relating to the men he supervised in the dining cars that was focused on helping them succeed instead of just extracting labor from them. He writes that the “most important thing to me at that time was learning the meaning of Love.” There was something so tender in this account that I find very moving – he really felt a closeness to God, expressed here: “He sustains you – that His thoughts are your thoughts, if you will permit them to be.” He writes that this quote by Mary Baker Eddy on page 445 of Science and Health, “Christian Science silences human will, quiets fear with Truth and Love…” meant that the “I” came out of human will and planning, that he was “just reflecting what was desired of God’s plans. All of your good – not intentions, but your good actions put into practice – that was it.” I’ve become aware that I have been being willful about some things in my life, and this idea of silencing human will with Love is very helpful.