If you're looking for healing, take hope!
SOMETIMES we're told that a case is hopeless. The kindest and best-intentioned efforts to find a cure have not brought healing. But healing is possible through turning unreservedly to God for help. There are no limits to the healing power of God's love. The Bible tells us of a woman who had suffered a difficult physical trouble for twelve years. Her personal resources were depleted in her effort to find effective treatment. But the effort was to no avail. In fact, her condition worsened. She must have had to fight discouragement. But she didn't give up hope. She had heard of the healing works of Christ Jesus, and she made the effort to go to him. She must have made an effort, because there were often large crowds surrounding Jesus. Healing might have seemed inaccessible to the woman, suffering as she did. But she reached out and was able to touch the hem of Jesus' garment. He turned and realized her need. She was healed.
``She felt in her body that she was healed of that plague,'' the Bible narrative tells us. Jesus said to her, ``Daughter, thy faith hath made thee whole; go in peace, and be whole of thy plague.'' 1
After all those years of suffering, the woman was free. What was it that healed her? Was it a power known only to Christ Jesus, a power no one else could understand? Apparently not, since Jesus' disciples learned something of the divine Principle behind his healing works and carried on this healing in the early Christian Church. It was not Jesus' personality that healed but his understanding of God's goodness and allness. He understood God to be our perfect Father-Mother and man to be the beloved offspring of God.
Christian Scientists are finding healing today through an understanding of God and of man's spiritual relationship to Him. They're finding healing of physical and moral troubles, relationship and business challenges. Some found healing when they had been given up as medically incurable. Testimonies of healing through prayer appear in every issue of the Christian Science Sentinel and The Christian Science Journal, which are available in Christian Science Reading Rooms. There are also Wednesday evening testimony meetings held at Churches of Christ, Scientist, throughout the world. All are welcome at these.
Mary Baker Eddy2 writes, ``Christian Science is not a remedy of faith alone, but combines faith with understanding, through which we may touch the hem of His garment; and know that omnipotence has all power.'' She then quotes the Bible verse from Isaiah in which God is represented as saying, ``I am the Lord, and there is none else, there is no God beside me.'' 3
Is it possible for anyone to be healed? There were many in Galilee with problems. Apparently not all of them sought out what Jesus had to offer--a whole new way of looking at themselves and the world. But many were receptive to the promises and requirements of the pure Christianity he taught, and were willing to make the effort to do that ``reaching out'' for the Christ--and were healed. The Bible records that many were permanently freed from such troubles as leprosy, fever, paralysis, deformity, blindness, and deafness. Those who had suffered the effects of sin had their broken hearts and broken lives restored as well. Mrs. Eddy writes, ``He that touches the hem of Christ's robe and masters his mortal beliefs, animality, and hate, rejoices in the proof of healing,--in a sweet and certain sense that God is Love.'' 4
As we grow in our understanding of God and His omnipotent love, our faith isn't blind. It grows into strong spiritual conviction that overrules cruel beliefs that would doom man to despair. If you need healing, turning to God is natural for you, and your hope is a legitimate hope, a hope that can be fulfilled.
1 Mark 5:29, 34. 2 The Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. 3 Miscellaneous Writings, p. 97. 4 Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 569.
