Dissolving disease shadows

It was late afternoon, instead of the hoped-for midmorning, when we finally arrived at Flat Rock -- hot, thirsty, and weary. Our anticipated lunchtime spell of relaxation on the cold surfave of the large rock hadn't been realized. no longer in the shade of the towering paperbark trees, the rock was now exposed to the broiling Australian sun and was burning hot. It would be much later in the day before therock was again in the cooling shadows.

For some reason, it struck me that though the shadows made a big difference to us, they really couldn't change the actual nature of Flat Rock itself. Cool or hot, shaded or sunlit, Flat Rock was Flat Rock. how like these shadows is disease. Though disease claims to change us, make us ill, it can't touch or change our real being. As Mary Baker, Eddy n1 explains, "Tumors, ulcers, tubercles, inflammation, pain, deformed joints, are waking dream-shadows, dark images of mortal thought, which flee before the light of Truth." n2

n1 Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science

n2 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures,m p. 418

Sickeness can never be an integral part of our real selfhood. it doesn't matter whether the "dream-shadows" of discord seem to be light and fleeting or deep, dark, and impenetrable. Even at its worst, sickness is still only a shadow that must disappear as we see ourselves in the light of Truth.

When we discern that the dream-shadow of disease never establishes itself as an integral part of being, we help ensure he immunity of the body from discord and pain. just as the shadow disappears with the light, so too will physical ills and suffering disappear as Christ, Truth, exposes the fleeting, powerless nature of disease and illumines thought.

One dark shadow on humanity that needs dispelling is the belief that matter is curative. Because they accept disease as a physical actuality, people resort to the uncertain promises of material medicine for healing. But this is laying shadow upon shadow, applying matter to matter. It may hide but can never really heal. The stab of pain, the nauseous upset, the inflammation, or congestion are still darkened though shadows, without ultimate substance or reality.

We destroy such shadows as we bathe though in the light of Truth -- the light of scientific and scriptural revelation of man's true identity as God's son. This identity is spiritual because God Himself is Spirit. We may seem to be cloaked in physicality, but this is only a shadow version of God's man. Scientifically corrected as an erroneous state of thought, disease disappears from the body. As Mrs. Eddy tells us, "When we remove disease by addressing the disturbed mind, giving no heed to the body, we prove that thought alone creates the suffering." n3

n3 ibid.,m p. 400;

Christ Jesus never allowed his confidence in God to be shadowed by the suggestions of disease or death. He demonstrated that the eternal perfection of life in God is always supreme over the somber suggestions of death or disability. He dispersed the shadow of death from the son of the widow of Nain, from Lazarus, and from himself. To Jesus, the continuing radiancy of life in and of God was undimmed by the shadow of death.

Climbing up and down ladders while restoring the roof gutters on our home one day, I became exhausted. I lay down to rest, but the shadow of weariness seemed deep and heavy. Mentally groping, I struggled to hold to the Bible assurance, "They that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; . . . they shall run, and not to be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint." n4

n4 Isaiah 40:31.

Just then, a neighbor called to borrow a tool. I tumbled off the bed to get it, and as I stood up, all weariness drained completely away. I felt a great surge of vitality. After getting the tool, I worked on unwearied until midnight.

The dream-shadows of mortality have no power. Whatever their name, they cannot limit or obstruct the normal activity of the body when we realize that health, energy, and freedom are God-imparted and God-impelled. Omnipotent Truth , understood,m demonstrates the impotent, fleeting nature of all disease shadows and dispels them. DAILY BIBLE VERSE The Lord shall smite Egypt: he shall smite and heal it. Isaiah 19:22