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When you need more faith

What can you do when you feel as though you don’t have faith? One woman shares a meaningful healing that taught her more about where faith comes from and how we can find it.

  • By Judith Hardy Olson

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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When I was in my 20s, I got really sick. Our neighbor, a doctor, overheard my coughing and told my husband I should be in the hospital. My worried husband wanted to take me to the emergency room if I wasn’t better by morning.

I’d had other healings through prayer before, so all that long night I prayed. But I felt afraid and doubtful. My faith in everything that I believed felt sorely tested. I was no better as the sun came up, and I felt ready to throw in the towel. My faith didn’t seem enough, because I’d given this prayer thing all I’d got.

But then, I asked myself, “Have I really?” A quick inventory of my thoughts from the previous night showed that very few had been on the side of God’s love and care; most had been on the side of fear and doubt.

Right then I apologized to God for giving up, then added this P.S.: “But, God, there’s one thing I’ll never give up on – that You are Love. That, I’m sure of.”

Well, with that, it was as if the floodgates opened. Starting with that one tiny thing I had faith in, suddenly all the proofs I’d had of God’s loving care poured into my thoughts. In minutes, all the fear and doubt were gone. My fever was also gone. I felt filled with God’s love for me. I was able to get up, speak without coughing, and make breakfast for my family. And in a couple of days I was totally well.

I’ve learned in Christian Science that God is the origin of everything good, and we are created to reflect all of God’s goodness and love. We don’t generate it ourselves. So even what appeared to be “my” faith was really God’s faithfulness to me that I was reflecting right back to Him.

I learned more about this from my study of the Bible, where it says of faith: “It is the gift of God” (Ephesians 2:8). This means we all must have faith, even if we haven’t discovered it yet, because it’s God-given. And this steadfast trust has unlimited potential to lift us up and move us forward, because it’s sourced in the infinite God. “If you have faith as small as a mustard seed,” Jesus told his disciples, “you can say to this mulberry tree, ‘Be uprooted and planted in the sea,’ and it will obey you” (Luke 17:6, New International Version).

“God is Love” was my mustard seed. It started small, but it came to my rescue when my faith was tested. And it has continued to, in more instances than I can count.

Your mustard seed may be different, but it’s there, because it’s a gift God has given you that can never be taken away. And through God’s love you’ll find it – and it will grow.

Other versions of this article appeared in the Aug. 13, 2020, Christian Science Daily Lift podcast and in the Christian Science Sentinel’s online TeenConnect section, Oct. 8, 2019.

Editor’s note: Interested in reading more about faith as a powerful force for healing? Check out “Faith in your healing prayer,” an article on www.JSH-Online.com. There is no paywall for this article.

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