Messengers of Healing
Angels have received much press lately. My research indicates over forty new books with titles involving angels published since 1994. American television has drawn millions of viewers alone with the program Touched by an Angel.
Perhaps you don't believe in angels. But suppose someone asked if you'd had an unexpected happy thought, a sudden feeling of goodness and peace, a dawning of hope, or an intuition of good. If so, then perhaps you were encountering the angels described as "God's thoughts passing to man; spiritual intuitions, pure and perfect" in the book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy (p. 581).
The Greek word rendered angel means "messenger." As God's messengers, angels are thoughts that bring healing. They are able to lift us up out of self-doubt, self-pity, and hopelessness. God is infinite and all-loving, continuously giving thoughts of joy and health to each one of us.
God knows you as His own image, created perfect, in His likeness. You reflect the intelligence and inspiration of God. The only true identity you have is already perfect, whole and complete, because it expresses God.
A distorted view of existence, accepted nevertheless as reality, prevents us from hearing God's messages, placing us at the mercy of evil. Reach out with your heart to hear God speak, and you find the joy, the love, the assurance that nullify fear, hatred, greed, and disease. The health and harmony that are native to God's creation cannot be obscured.
Physical health and well-being are the normal effects of hearing angel thoughts. A good way to work at becoming more in tune with these thoughts is to consider the demands of the Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount from the Bible (see Exodus 20:3-17 and Matthew, chaps. 5-7). These teach us the nature of God. The attitude of humility that seeks to know and obey God finds fresh inspiration daily, even hourly. This is the spiritual perspective that Christian Science, the truth of God discovered by Mrs. Eddy, shows us how to find and keep.
Sometimes we hear angels in ways we don't expect: in encouraging words from a friend, in a ray of hope dawning amid discouragement, in greater peace and well-being. Angel guidance often comes during our most difficult hours. This is because, bereft of all human aid, we seek a higher support.
Some years ago I became very sick and was in pain. I was bedridden. I prayed earnestly day and night, with little or no sleep, endeavoring to hear God's voice above the pain and discouragement.
One night after several hours of praying to feel God's presence, I was roused by an inner light, a voice that assured me I was God's child-spiritual. I was alone in a dark room, yet it seemed as though someone had turned on a bright light and had spoken to me. An angel thought had brought me the promise of healing. It had reassured me that God knew me to be as perfect and untouched by disease and pain as He is. Amid the depths of suffering had come this message from God. As Science and Health says, "The very circumstance, which your suffering sense deems wrathful and afflictive, Love can make an angel entertained unawares" (p. 574). God is Love. Continuing to pray and trust in God, I was healed completely.
The Bible shows numerous examples of hearts uplifted and encouraged by thoughts of God. Elijah and Daniel were comforted and strengthened by angels, who appeared to their troubled thoughts. Jacob's character was transformed through his encounter with "a man," whom Science and Health describes as "an angel, a message from Truth and Love" (p. 308). It is recorded in the book of Matthew that, after Jesus Christ thwarted the taunts of the devil, "angels came and ministered unto him" (4:11). Because God is eternal, unrestricted by time or space, these Bible accounts have meaning for us today.
God speaks to all receptive hearts, without regard to background, environment, or education. We can open our hearts today and find that healing is inevitable for us and for all humanity.
