Reflection and Healing

Walking along the riverbank on a quiet October afternoon, I noticed the overhanging trees reflected perfectly in the water below. So perfectly, in fact, that it was impossible to make out where the trees ended and the water began.

I was suddenly struck quite forcefully by the simple fact that whatever was in the original had to be in the reflection, and vice versa. The reflection couldn't do anything independently of the trees themselves. The reflection couldn't deviate from the original in appearance.

I know that this must sound pretty obvious to most people, but it started me thinking of how the concept of reflection conveys a very profound spiritual message - one that heals.

At the time, I had been asked to pray for a young girl who was suffering with a condition of plantar warts on her foot. I had reached out to God for a message of healing truth. It was then that I had noticed the reflection of those trees, and was better able to understand a fundamental point in Christian healing: that each of us is one with God as His spotless, spiritual reflection.

I went on to acknowledge in prayer that this girl, as a child of God, was at that moment spotless and perfect. In the oneness of God and His reflection there is no disease, anger, or criticism. This prayer effectively healed the girl of the warts. No medication of any sort was involved.

Mary Baker Eddy, who discovered Christian Science, wrote about healing through prayer in "Science and Health with Key the Scriptures." She used the analogy of the mirror and its reflection in explaining the relationship we each have to God: "Your mirrored reflection is your own image or likeness. If you lift a weight, your reflection does this also. If you speak, the lips of this likeness move in accord with yours. Now compare man before the mirror to his divine Principle, God. Call the mirror divine Science, and call man the reflection. Then note how true, according to Christian Science, is the reflection to its original. As the reflection of yourself appears in the mirror, so you, being spiritual, are the reflection of God" (Pgs. 515-516).

You are actually the flawless image of your Maker. Your true identity is spiritual because God is Spirit. This spiritual identity, when acknowledged sincerely and prayerfully, has contributed to countless mental and physical healings. You can prove this for yourself.

Theology has often presented us as sinful and mortal, and God as knowing evil and sending evil. Christian Science rejects this. It proves that we are each entirely good and pure, the reflection of God, who knows nothing unlike good. Understanding the spotless nature of the Father, Christ Jesus also understood the perfection of his fellow men and women. He rejected the belief that God knows sickness and makes us to know sickness. He taught only about a God of perfect love.

One day, when explaining spiritual reflection to one woman, Mrs. Eddy once again referred to a mirror: If a pin or hole were in the woman's dress, she asked the woman, would it not be in the mirrored reflection as well? She conveyed that, provided the pin or hole was in the original, it would be impossible to get it out of the reflection. She then went on: "God never changes, does He? He is eternally the same. Now if God were conscious of sickness, sin, and death, we could never expect to overcome them, for the divine consciousness does not change, and we could never remove from the reflection that which is in the original" ("We Knew Mary Baker Eddy," Pgs. 76-77). This serves to illustrate the healing truth that God is reflected only in good.

It is in understanding that God's image cannot be sick or fearful or mortal - and moreover must be good and immortal - that one begins to see how Christian healing is attainable. As our concept of who we are is uplifted, we comprehend something of what the Bible means when it says, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (Gen. 1:26).

The understanding of spiritual reflection is always available, each moment, to free us - to help us realize our potential for living lives of health and goodness.

You can read in-depth articles on Christian Science in a monthly magazine, The Christian Science Journal.