In yesterday's blog post, I mentioned having experienced many proofs of God's power through my understanding of Christian Science. It may be helpful to some reader in cyberspace to learn about a specific instance of this.
When we lived in New England, I severely injured my foot. Right off, I prayed about it along the lines of what my religion teaches. I kept endeavoring to realize that I was a child of God, divine Mind, that nothing had really happened to separate me from His omnipresent care, and other such spiritual facts. But I kept remembering the experience of an acquaintance with a similar injury. This woman was not yet back to full mobility afater a year of medical attention. The thought of what if this drags on nagged at me.
Well, one day I was shuffling along on an errand in Needham, taking care to walk on only one part of my foot when...Bam! A spiritual insight stopped me cold on the sidewalk. With crystal clarity I saw that the injury and pain were not part of me, had never been part of me. "Why, I don't have to creep along with this difficulty. There's no need for gradual improvement. This never happened to me as God's reflection!"
Instantly, I felt somehting being adjusted physically. I actually did. The discomfort disappeared. While it's hard to put into words, I knew and felt that I was completely healed, right then and there. I walked on freely and normally. This healing showed me the mental nature of recuperation.
And it demonstrated to me, once again, the benefits that come to us from knowing something of what Jesus knew about God and about man's relationship to Him.
Mrs. Eddy, the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science,writes in "Unity of Good", "Jesus required neither cycles of time nor thought in order to mature fitness for perfection and its possibilities (p. 11). Time does not actually enter into spiritual healing. Why is this? Because what appears to be a physical difficulty is, in reality, wholly mental. It is but a phase of mortal belief, objectified. As it becomes clear that we're not dealing with a real condition that needs to be changed but only with an erroneous mental state, a misconception of man's true spiritual identity, we stop being a afraid of or impressed with debility. What appears real to erring human belief is not a reality to man in God's likeness. It has never been real at all. Our need, therefore, is always for a change of consciousness from a material to a spiritual basis, to the recognition that God is perfect and that we are His perfect, spiritual reflection -- now and forever. As my experience demonstrates, this enlightened mental state is then objectified in our life as normality and freedom.
Psalms points out, "Lord, thou hast been our dwelling place in all generations." (90:1) This is the reason why you and I, in truth, are eternally exempt from suffering of any kind. We have never been apart from our divine source, God, not even for a moment. As God's man, dwelling in Him, we are and always have been preserved by His unerring laws of harmony and well-being. Equipped with this Christly knowledge, we can find quick healing when we need it.
