“As the inspiration gleaned from these words washed over me, I began to feel the Christ.”

When I was young I had difficulty swinging on a swing, driving in a car for long trips or going out on a boat without feeling dizzy and sick.  I was told the feeling was called sea-sickness. I held on to that term for a long time, believing what the body was telling me, as if matter could make a law that seemed to belong specifically to me.

My family had a cottage to go to and I loved water related activities. I tried many times to break free of this claim of sickness. I had some progress but the feeling of discomfort continued for years, especially while on a boat.

Over all these years I continued a study of the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, written by Mary Baker Eddy.  I learned from this study that God does not institute nor conceive of any bad experience for man. It became true to me from many demonstrations over other beliefs of sickness that I was sustained in harmony and health by the laws of God.

I grew in my understanding that God is the one Mind.  Everything in the universe that has intelligent, active Being is the effect of what God is consciously knowing and expressing. I learned that sea-sickness and all forms of discomfort are not natural. What is natural are qualities and attributes of God, experienced as harmony, peace, wholeness, and health.  

I understood that God is the one cause, often referred to as the primary creative cause. I found comfort in this law about God and how God expresses the law as His idea. It meant to me that the mortal sense of a body susceptible to sea-sickness, was a misconception of what God knew about me.  God never would have caused one of His expressions of Himself to experience the effect of sickness.  

Last year, dear friends, who also study Christian Science, invited me to spend the day on their sailboat.  These friends knew of the problem with motion sickness. All three of us agreed to expect freedom, dominion over the long held mistaken belief that there is a cause other than God, good.

Once on the boat, I did get a strong feeling of nausea.  On this day, with the support of my friends with their understanding that I could not be held in bondage to a lie, we corrected every thought that argued for discomfort or argued for a cause other than spiritual laws.

When I could not get my “sea legs ”, my host suggested that I think about being flexible, and not be tricked by thoughts that argued that I needed to resist the sensations of an ocean swell or the movement of the boat. I knew flexibility was a quality that I reflected from the one source, God. Immediately I had a complete change of thought and feeling. I stopped thinking that I did not have dominion over this false belief. I began to expect a change.  

When passing through the channel out to the open sea, my friends talked about the fact that in this harbor, the bottom of the channel was rock, not shifting sands.  My consciousness was again uplifted. I thought about what Mrs. Eddy wrote regarding the spiritual interpretation of Rock on page 593 of Science and Health; “Rock. Spiritual foundation; Truth.  As the inspiration gleaned from these words washed over me, I began to feel the Christ.  Truth was releasing me from all reactions to the specific false beliefs.  

I realized all those years of accepting and agreeing with the material senses’ testimony saying I was subject to illness was based upon a lie of mortal mind suggestion. It was and is a supposition that I could be separated from the presence, laws and power of the constant, unchanging, infinite, intelligent law-maker. I turned my thought from matter and mortal mind misconceptions of man.

This sense of awareness of the presence of the Christ, the true idea of God, gave me a sense of the power of peace, of goodness, of joy. The cause was no longer a body impairment resulting in nausea but one of equipoise, normal stability. God’s laws of health, freedom prevailed.

I stopped being afraid of not feeling well, and I felt anchored on the rock of Truth. I felt harmony was the Truth about me and I could feel the sickness fade out of my experience.  Later in the day, we all shared a meal prepared by the hostess.  In every way I enjoyed sailing.

Since that day I have gone on other boat trips. Depending on the weather I’ve sometimes experienced a slight suggestion of nausea, but I now understand that God does not cause the sickness and I’ve turned to the divine Principle which enforces the law of harmony. This power and Principle overcomes and dispels the belief of sea-sickness because it is unlawful and always has been. It is not in compliance with the teachings and demonstrations of Christ Jesus, who showed us the way to prove the natural law of harmony. I am grateful to say that on the last ferry ride I took this past summer, I was totally free to enjoy the journey.