The power of prayer to heal

Some years ago, as I was listening to an inspirational talk, I marveled at an account the speaker shared of his complete recovery from a serious car accident through relying entirely on prayer. The seemingly miraculous account reminded me of Christ Jesus’ healings in the Bible, which I had learned about as a child in Protestant Sunday School but frankly had not thought about since.

I wanted to know more about how this healing was possible. The speaker was a Christian Scientist, so I began attending the Wednesday testimony meetings at the local Christian Science Society. Here I heard the members joyously share how they had been healed of a range of difficulties by relying solely on the spiritual laws of God.

Inspired by this, I began to study Christian Science. Gradually I learned that spiritual healing was the natural outcome of understanding that God, Spirit, is the very source of our existence and that each of us, as God’s spiritual child, reflects and expresses the infinite goodness that constitutes God’s being.

One analogy that helped me understand this radical line of spiritual reasoning is that of the inseparability of the sun from its rays. I saw that just as the sun pours forth light as rays, God expresses His attributes – beauty, harmony, holiness, etc. – in His offspring, man (a generic term that includes woman, too).

This statement in “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Monitor founder Mary Baker Eddy further clarified the idea of our inseparability from our creator: “As a drop of water is one with the ocean, a ray of light one with the sun, even so God and man, Father and son, are one in being” (p. 361). I loved this so much that I put it to song and sang it as a prayer throughout my day.

The more I acknowledged the spiritual fact of my oneness with God, the more harmony I experienced in my daily affairs. For instance, up to this point, I’d had extreme breathing difficulties owing to an allergy. Medical tests had identified pollen from the geranium flower as the cause for the difficulty. I wasn’t specifically seeking healing for this difficulty, nor had I even entirely grasped that healing of this particular condition could truly be possible. But my yearning to know more fully the presence and power of God, good, resulted in experiencing more of that goodness in my daily life, and over time my breathing became normal.

In fact, I actually forgot about the problem until some time later, after I’d moved to Canada and met and married a dear man who loved growing geraniums. He wintered them and then nurtured them into bloom the following summer. One summer, my mother came for a visit, and with great surprise she asked me, “What are you doing with geraniums in the house?” I burst into laughter, realizing what a complete healing I had experienced.

Reflecting on this experience, I now know that my prayer to feel God’s goodness governing my life was answered as I accepted that my true identity was, and is, the God-derived expression of God’s spiritual qualities, rather than just a mortal, material being. Humble prayer opens the door for our thought to become more spiritual, that is, to express our oneness with God, and in the process, our human experience improves, including our health!