"Thought was brimming with light and certainty of God’s Love carrying us all forward in this fresh new world of Christ."
/Recently I had an experience that gave me new momentum in working. It involved persistently choosing spiritual consciousness and revelation over the darkness that a material sense of existence mired in matter was insisting was real. I found physical and mental freedom. It wasn’t a quick healing, but the complete healing was so definite, it made all the lessons learned along the way more beautiful and meaningful.
For over a year and a half I had been coughing off and on. During one summer when I had had a long quiet lull in my schedule, I worked diligently to handle aggressive suggestions of apathy, fear that some challenges had gone unhealed, concern that I hadn’t had a physical healing in a long time (actually not true). I struggled for several months and finally broke through the mental fog that claimed I didn’t really understand Christian Science or else I’d be healed by now. Despite that long struggle, it became so clear that this doubt wasn’t my thought, never had been.
I found this helpful: Paths of Pioneer Christian Scientists tells of Emma Thompson a month after Primary class, being sent in a tailspin mentally, feeling blank and uninspired. MBE wrote back: "Your experience at this time is most promising. Everyone that stands by me and is governed by God...will experience from the influence of Satan trying him...remember...cardinal points in Science...that a lie is never true...and you cannot lose your true Mind any more than God can.” (p. 29) This said to me: I could disbelieve the lie; my relationship to God was established, indestructible. This was the first part of the healing.
The next spring the coughing became more frequent, sounded “bad”, and was more present in general public thought, suddenly much noticed by colleagues and friends. So I addressed prevalent fears, addressed aggressive suggestions regarding physical or mental causes (there are none).
I was struggling with breathing; going upstairs or walking any distance would tire me out, I didn’t sleep well as breathing was rough and loud. Several times I called a practitioner to work with me when there seemed to be a crisis of faith. Each time as we worked together I gained such an uplifted sense of Love’s tender presence that joy and peace and inspiration returned, and physical symptoms would subside.
One weekend I had to go out on the roof to shovel several feet of snow off. I found myself praying with MBE’s poem “O gentle presence...” I would shovel two scoops and stop, as breathing was difficult. But it seemed right not to give up on the much needed project AND not to go on until I felt Love’s presence. So I stood there on top of the shed being grateful, thanking God for His tender care. Then I’d shovel two scoops, then stop and pray again. The job got done slowly but surely with a great sense of joy and freedom. The next morning I was able to do my job as Second Reader with full freedom. Thought was brimming with light and certainty of God’s Love carrying us all forward in this fresh new world of Christ. The reading rehearsal the day before had been a struggle to finish sentences with shortness of breath. Now the meaning of what I was reading felt even more real and uplifting and melted away the fear and struggle and breathing difficulty.
Then again the coughing reoccurred even more aggressively. It wasn’t doubt that assailed, this time it was aggressive materialism, that I was mired in a material world that didn’t let up, endless work demands, not enough time or inspiration, all grounded in a belief that a limited mortal “I” was dwelling in a material situation.
Things that were so helpful:
One of many articles from the periodicals: Healing: seeing through the mirage of disease (CSS 11/10/2014). The author related his experience with a mirage to the nothingness of disease. He asked Sunday School students if symptoms of a cold were a mirage: what happens to the symptoms when healing came? Answer: Nothing, they were never real! Healing is seeing their nothingness.
Notes from my journal:
How convinced human thought is of matter and material experience. Yet healing proves matter to be nothing. I am in Science, “entirely separate from the belief and dream of material living.” (S&H, p. 14) I have never been trapped in matter. I am in the holy of holiest. That is solid conviction and real. From Science and Health, “Mentally insist that harmony is the fact and that sickness is a temporal dream. Realize the presence of health and the fact of harmonious being, until the body corresponds with the normal conditions of health and harmony.” (S&H 412:23). Insisting that harmony is the fact is something I can do!
I loved delving into the books and finding out what God as “all-acting” meant.
I went to visit relatives in another state. The practitioner continued to work with me. The days were filled with much opportunity to be still and pray. My conviction of Love’s tender care, immediate presence and omnipotent action, continued to grow. Within three days there was no more evidence of any illness. I rejoiced.
Last fall when my schedule became more intense again, familiar symptoms tried to insist that they were back and real. I wasn’t so easily drawn into the false picture. I had already been healed completely, and I knew with “no doubt” that matter was a lie. I also knew MBE was adamant about praying daily for oneself, and I was more awake to the healing effect and substance of spiritual inspiration. Freedom came, not immediately, but definitely. And persistence in choosing spiritual consciousness and revelation over the “waking dream-shadows, dark images of mortal thought” (S&H, p. 418) brought healing again.