“we are turning to the One Mind which knows all truthful ideas, and that’s what brings healing”

1. A Century of Christian Science Healing changed my view of man. When we seem to have a challenge or challenges, they may try to overtake our sense of existence. The challenges appear to suggest that they are more real than our own identities, as God’s man, or even more real than God, Her/Himself, and a “yes, but” kind of existence endeavors to take the reins. What really struck me, when reading A Century of Christian Science Healing, was that no matter what the seeming challenge or mortal picture was – no matter how dramatic, horrific, long-lasting, or engulfing it appeared to be, or no matter how tenaciously it tried to cling to the testifier – the truth came through, and they could see what man was and what man was not. These uplifted views of man, through a Scientific lens, allowed these individuals to identify themselves as aligned with or surrounded by God’s qualities.

There was an amazingly varied array of testimonies, but in many cases, the details of the specific metaphysical truths were absent. Humanly, this could seem less than satisfying, because the suggestion is, “Yes, but we need to know the precise metaphysics behind the healing, if we want to see the same kind of healing in our own lives.” But, I knew that wasn’t the case, because I remembered the many times you have reminded us that the claim, “We don’t know the truths that will heal us,” is simply part of the illusion. We are not trying to load our human consciousness with powerful truths but are turning to the One Mind, which knows all truthful ideas, and that’s what brings healing. I thoroughly enjoyed reading A Century of Christian Science Healing. It banished the malicious aggressive suggestion that Christian Science doesn’t heal. Many of the situations seemed beyond human hope of healing.

2. One of my favorites was unfathomable from a human perspective but crystal clear from a God-centered point of view of God’s all-present power. The testifier had his legs and stomach run over by a truck containing five yards of rock. To human sense, under normal circumstances, this would seem to be a clear-cut example of how man, like all forms of matter, is governed by the laws of physics. If a large, heavy, solid object rolls over a smaller, more fragile object, the one on the bottom isn’t going to fare too well; that’s just physics. This testimony presented a kind of evidence that seemed not only indisputable but also horrendous from a human point of view. The prayerful work of the man, his mother, and a practitioner (who the man never met until a year after this occurrence) resulted in a total reversal of the laws of gravity and physical structure. To me, this was an incredibly tangible example of the accessible power of God, as witnessed through Christian Science. (p. 114)

The other was an amazing example of God’s Love and ever presence. It involved six children who were saved from drowning, when the canoe, they were paddling, overturned. Again, to human sense, this testimony seemed unbelievable! I love the distinct feeling of the immediate presence of God to keep the six of them safe in the water, for two whole hours. The eldest, not a particularly great swimmer, proved that his strength and endurance came from God, as he swam about four miles to find help, reciting truths he had learned in Sunday School the whole time. The other five children, (the youngest, four years old) stayed afloat with the boat for the two hours while saying prayers they had learned. The little girl’s explanation that she knew the water was over her father and mother’s heads but not over God’s head, shows such an obvious childlike acknowledgement God’s ever-present care and love for his children. (p. 110)

3. We saw a kind of a mixture of those two testimonies in our family. It began when my twin brother, a little less than two years old, was found floating face down in our large wading pool. He had gone in to get a ball, which hadn’t been noticed by the other children playing baseball in our backyard. My older brother (then about eight years old) found him, carried him out of the pool and went to get my mother.

When my mother got to my twin brother, the situation looked dire. He wasn’t breathing. She picked him up and held him and declared that God was his life. She took him into her bedroom, and she wouldn’t put him down until she was truly sure about that statement. The other children in the family were elsewhere praying as well. Not too long after, the children were allowed to come into the bedroom. My sister recently told me that she remembers that she could see that my mom was happy, which confused her because her little brother was crying and coughing up water. That was really the end of the story. At the insistence of some relatives, because so many children had witnessed the drowning, the fire department was called, and this resulted in my brother’s being placed in the hospital overnight for observation, but no medical treatment was needed. We have always been so grateful to God for that undeniable proof of God as the source of life.

4. The idea that I mentioned in my first question is the one that I find most helpful – an awareness of man, and therefore all of us, as God’s own children and reflections, rather than whatever images appear before the mirror, is so helpful for not being taken in by the mortal picture. It gives new impetus to handling problems, physical, economic, or those concerning relationships. Just as those numerous individuals were able to see through and overcome myriad challenges by turning to Mary Baker Eddy’s writings, as well as those many paths of communication distributed by the Christian Science Publishing Society, I too, can refresh my thought to see myself and those around me, in the same light! It encourages me to work, with expectation, about older challenges that have been neglected or accepted and see that they are not a part of that man (as proven by so many individuals in A Century of Christian Science Healing.) I believe that this is a very important position to take, today especially, when so much of the world is trying to convince us that disease is a real threat to man and has a definite cause. I was so grateful to read this book now. It a strong refutation of this world thought.