November 2012
/Check it out!
Through the years, testimonies of healing in the Christian Science periodicals and programs have been called a number of different things—letters about healing, reports of healing, and so on. But whatever they’re called, they remain without question one of the most important communications we have going on in the Christian Science movement.
Testimonies are a witness to God’s great realness. They are written out of thanks and tremendous gratitude for the experience of God’s healing care. Writers tell honestly of their relief, their joy, and of spiritual realities learned in unforgettable ways. They share encouragement for all of us who are walking the path Christ Jesus originally marked out. And they speak from the heart to newcomers. They do more to advance the Cause of Christian Science, as Mrs. Eddy knew they must, than anything else can.
In this space, we’ll bring to your attention some portions of testimonies from the past that deserve a second look. We’ll indicate their date and page number in the periodicals so you can read them in their entirety in “JSH Online” or in the bound volumes of your nearest Reading Room.
Here are three excerpts from testimonies in the 1974 Christian Science Sentinel, Vol 76, Part I. It was a year of great testimonies, believe me. But I’ve chosen these three because they serve to describe so well the illumination or change of thought that is behind healing.
“Over the years I had heard testimonies given in which the speaker mentioned being conscious of a great light, and I often thought, ‘Well, I have never seen a great light. I wonder what they are talking about.’
About fifteen years ago I experienced this wonderful sense of spiritual light and illumination in connection with a healing of what appeared to be cancer.” February 23, 1974 Sentinel, pp. 337-338.”
“I began to search my consciousness as to why I had received no healing. I was reminded of past healings resulting just from working with the Lord’s Prayer. Then the thought came, ‘You have not been working with the truth but going along with the error, acknowledging it with your moaning.
After repeating [the Lord’s Prayer] a number of times, I stopped at the words, ‘Hallowed be thy name’ (Matt. 6:9)…I finally realized the name of an incurable disease had been in my consciousness.” March 16, 1974 Sentinel, pp. 472-474
“At the first service I attended in a Church of Christ, Scientist, this statement in the reading stood out me very boldly: ‘Thou wilt keep him in perfect peace, whose mind is stayed on thee’.
‘How could one possibly fulfill this condition,’ I wondered, ‘when there are so many things requiring one’s attention?’
I had just witnessed a remarkable healing, through prayer in Christian Science, of a friend’s father who had been critically injured in an automobile accident. As a guest in the home, and knowing nothing but opposing rumors about this religion, I was concerned about what this Christian Science friend was doing for him, and more particularly what she was not doing.” May 18, 1974 Sentinel, pp. 866-869