The healing of a tumor illustrates the “serious practicality of Christian Science practice”

Here are my conclusions drawn from reading the compilation of testimonies you sent:

I.  My initial reaction is of the critical importance of turning to God first, immediately, and under all circumstances. Irrespective of the nature or severity of the claim, turn only to God’s loving care. I thought the accident examples were dramatic proofs of this.

Don’t “second guess” your own spiritual capabilities to handle any challenge that comes your way. The incident has come to you as an opportunity for spiritual growth.

Also, the importance of being “prayed-up”—being ready, willing, able, and eager to jump in with metaphysical support whenever and wherever needed.

In many testimonies, I appreciated the way that Christian Science practitioners were called in when deeper metaphysical support was needed. The loving care, immediacy, and continuity of their response, along with their clarity of thought and absolute conviction of imminent healing, accelerated a positive outcome.

All the testimonies beautifully illustrated the absolute requirement of “radical reliance on Truth,” as Mrs. Eddy says. Do your metaphysical work, rely exclusively on the loving support and direction of divine Mind, and get out of the way to let the healing process reveal the perfection that was always there.

II.  I believe that the following healing, for which I am humbly grateful, illustrates the “serious practicality of Christian Science practice.”

Last spring I was doing some yard work and picked up several splinters in my left hand.  As I was pulling them out that evening, one seemed to go deeper than the rest. A couple of days later, a tumor appeared where the deepest splinter had been.

As I had been using Noah Webster’s 1849 dictionary (possibly the one that Mrs. Eddy would have used), I turned to the definition of tumor, which was “a preponderance of superfluous tissue with no distinct purpose.” Obviously, the tumor on my hand was a creation of mortal mind pictured on the material body. Using Mrs. Eddy’s definition of man and the Scientific Statement of Being, I got to work reaffirming who I really was.

Time passed, however, and the tumor appeared to grow and, upon occasion, to bleed profusely. While sailing the coast of Maine that August, the tumor was knocked off, but grew right back, larger than ever.

When, from time to time, I became discouraged with the seeming lack of progress, the image of Jesus healing the man with the withered hand would come to me. I realized that it had required a lot of courage for both Jesus and the man anticipating healing to come to the temple on the Sabbath, when rabbinical law forbade healing.

About this time, my wife gave me a stack of testimonies she had written up through the years for her Christian Science Association. The last one contained a healing message from Mrs. Eddy that really resonated with me: “Admit the existence of matter, and you admit that mortality (and therefore disease) has a foundation in fact. Deny the existence of matter, and you can destroy the belief in material conditions. When fear disappears, the foundation of disease is gone” (S&H 368:27–­32). Mrs. Eddy further states that Jesus’ deeds “manifested Jesus’ control over the belief that matter is substance, that it can be the arbiter of life or the constructor of any form of existence” (S&H 369:10).

I now had a much clearer idea of what I was up against—it was really only a belief or illusion, which Truth could and would destroy.

Almost simultaneously, we received a mailing from Arden Wood, which included a copy of a Christian Science talk in which the speaker told how he had been healed of an aggressive growth on his forehead. The following passage was particularly helpful to me:

“In working about this disfigurement, … something came to me clearly, which I find helpful in my work as a practitioner today. It is this: there is no life in any false belief, regardless of what form it takes. Specifically, in this instance, I saw that there was no life in the protuberance above my eye to make it grow. A day or two after getting this clear conviction, … the growth [fell] off the area above my eye, leaving it clear and free of blemish…

“If you are struggling with a visible physical claim that seems to grow or take over, remember that it has no life, and hence no basis for growth or continuity.  Only what expresses God, divine Life, can externalize itself in our body or experience.” (Excerpts from “Life That Maketh All Things New,” Bart R. Van Eck, C.S.B, November 2, 1997)

I finally felt that the work had been done and that I could, with complete confidence, give it all up to God’s ever-present, all-encompassing love for me. He had graciously presented me with all the information I needed to understand the lessons to be learned.

Shortly thereafter, I participated in our Sunday morning church service by serving as First Reader. While taking off my suit jacket and tie, the tumor just tumbled off my left hand, and that was the end of the problem. For this example of the serious practicality of Christian Science practice, I am most humbly grateful.