It was a very hot day. And when I noticed the man who was here to examine our sprinkler system for the water department standing under the shade of our magnolia tree, I thought nothing about it. But after a while, I realized something might be amiss. So, I went out and asked if he needed a cup of cold water, or wanted to come into the kitchen to get cool for a while. "Thank you, no, ma'm", this nice black man said who we knew from his coming around for several years.
I went in, but he didn't leave. So, I went out again and took some water anyway. He seemed thankful to have it. Then he opened up with, "I don't feel well at all." What followed was a sad story. He had consulted several doctors about his problem, and they had recommended he go to yet another doctor for more tests. They didn't know what the recurring difficulty might be. "I have so many medical bills, take so much medicine every day", he shared with me. "I feel overwhelmed at times."
While I didn't talk to him about spiritual truths, I was certainly knowing what is true about God's man--every one of us. He said, "I think I'll just stand here a bit." I stayed with him awhile longer. Then he said "I feel a little better. I can get to my truck now".
This incident made me so grateful for Christian Science, that teaches sickness can be prevented, that one doesn't have to rely on human means for health being that God is an everpresent help whatever the problem.
No one need feel helpless when symptoms of disease appear. Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science, points out something we can do to maintain sound health. She writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: "Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously. When the condition is present which you say induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident, then perform your office as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears. Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the body cannot suffer from them." (p. 392)
Christian Science, in accord with the Bible, teaches that God is the only genuine cause, the sole creator of the universe, including man, and that the true nature of creation is spiritual, wholly good, expressing God's nature. From the standpoint of absolute truth, all cause and effect are spiritual, and all is the perfect handiwork of God, divine Spirit.
When a person learns that thought affects every aspect of his life, he sees the necessity of replacing fearful, sickly thoughts with spiritual truths that uplift, transform, and keep one whole. No matter what others may be falsely believing about sickness and ill health, we don't have to abjectly surrender our peace and harmony, but may instead exercise our God-given power over suffering.
Because you and I are actually the reflection of infinite, harmonious Spirit, and we include only those qualities Spirit imparts--peace, joy, health, dominion--the suffering and fear that may seem so real have no genuine power over us. They are misconceptions, false beliefs, not actual God-created conditions. And being misconceptions, they can be corrected with the truth of man's inseparable relationship to God, of his uninterrupted well-being as God's reflection. This truth heals.
Mrs. Eddy writes in Science and Health: "The fact that Truth overcomes both disease and sin reassures depressed hope. It imparts a healthy stimulus to the body, and regulates the system. It increases or diminishes the action, as the case may require, better than any drug, alterative, or tonic." p. 420
Empowered with the Christly understanding of Truth, we can demonstrate the fact that sickness can be prevented. We can experience what the Bible promises: "The Lord will take away from thee all sickness." (Deuteronomy 7:15)
