“To love God…is our birthright to heal and it has been done everywhere AT ANY TIME”

The first testimony/account that spoke directly to me was of a youngster of not quite 13 years old who took five children (mostly cousins) on a canoe ride that ended up being some three miles from the nearest shore.…The canoe overturned, and they all fell into the water.…Almost all the children attended Christian Science Sunday School, and so they repeated poems of Mrs. Eddy and the Scientific Statement of Being and prayers learned in church. The writer decided to swim after a boat that he had seen not long before. He reminded himself that “I knew that we could not at any time be separated from God.” He had no training in long distance swimming but was buoyed by his remembrance of the truth, and he was able to reach some fishermen who took him back. This took two hours. All the children except for one were still hanging onto the side of the canoe. The writer found her a little distance from the canoe calmly floating in the water. The four year old who had been floating was asked what she was thinking all that time. Her response was that she knew the water was over her parents’ head but not over God’s head.

There were other examples of Science working out uplifting healings.

There was an absolutely warm, uplifting account of a brother who was a Christian Scientist who worked with his sister while she was in a hospital diagnosed with cancer, expected to expire in a few days. He maintained his vigilance, his trust in God’s care, and never left the hospital for five days. He never seemed to sleep or eat but was always mindful to remind everyone he came into contact with that his sister Mary was God’s child, and that there was no death but life in God. “He would never admit that I would die.” (p. 61) When during his sister’s second or third night the nurses recorded that she had expired, he came to her and put both his hands on her cheeks and called her name. He called out her name twice, and she returned. “After I awoke from that condition,” she wrote, “I felt and knew that I was healed.”

Another fascinating experience took place when the Japanese army conquered Bataan Corregidor and many American sailors and soldiers, to escape Japanese prison camps, took to any kind of escape transit to leave the Philippines. Their plan was to go through New Guinea, though “enemy-infested” waters, a distance of 1,500 miles. Their only navigational tool was a page from an atlas and a practitioner who said that he would pray for them. They made their way without sickness, hunger, or conflicts with any natives. After arriving at New Guinea, the writer met a commanding officer of an active vessel who offered to take them to Australia because their primitive outrigger would never make it. The officer had just arrived soon after the Americans and was only to stay for five hours. One of the writer’s shipmates, who was an atheist, remarked, “too many things worked out just right to be the result of chance. There has to be a law of some kind.”

Another account had to do with a Christian Scientist who said that he had been a Scientist for 49 years, and he never once had to get a practitioner’s help. Perhaps one can see this as more braggadorio than a sincere statement of commitment to Science. I don’t. I see it as someone who hasn’t “fallen off his perch” (The Story of Christian Science Wartime Activities 1939-1946, Christian Science Publishing Society Boston, MA, 1947, pp 265-266) but is always aware of guidance and love every day. There is an old hymn that I love which says, “Love (God) place my feet on higher ground.” I can only figure that he must have been practicing “renewing prayer” while keeping his thoughts elevated.

Christian Science could be said to be a delivery system that can reach anyone, anywhere, at any time. Century tells of healings where the practitioner was not in the same room but hundreds or over thousands of miles away. Christian Science is a religion that looks to the inward man, not impressed by the worldly aspect. It is a faith that will not shrink. “Then said Jesus unto the twelve, will you also go away? Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? Thou hast the words of eternal life.” To love God with humility, grace, compassion and not give credibility or power to any other thought is our birthright to heal and it has been done everywhere AT ANY TIME.

While winterizing some lawn equipment, I was running a push mower so that the oil would get hot and facilitate the draining of the dirty oil. After turning the mower off, I then grabbed it to turn it upside down, but in that act the mower slipped from my hand and the hot exhaust hit the underside of my arm next to my wrist. I felt no pain nor fear, but I knew that I had to address the event firmly but without any unnecessary chatter. That is, I did not get upset, call myself clumsy, or give much thought as to what could happen with the burn. I knew from lots of experience that God is my help, that I am 100% spiritual, and that animal magnetism has absolutely no hold on me. I knew my expected end and could claim dominion now. I asked my wife to get me a large bandage while I cleaned up the burn. I noticed that the skin layers indicated third degree burn, but I was completely calm because degrees don’t interfere with God’s healing process and the healing can be done quickly. Within a few days I removed the heavier bandage, cleaned around it, and put on a lighter gauze. There was never any pain, infection, nor scar, and it was completely healed in two days after applying the second bandage.

P.S. Something I found in the Reading Room. It was a letter directed to the staff in 1883. It resonated with me. I had never heard it before. The letter was much longer, but I’ll share this.

“You have dominion in Him, over the world; the flesh and the devil; dominion that is omnipotent; Your life is in Him. No power can bind you. God is the only Life. Spirit is the only substance. Love is the only cause. Harmony is the only law. Now is the only time.”