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Healed of sciatica

Disheartened by a doctor’s advice that she learn to live with the pain of sciatica, a woman turned wholeheartedly to Christian Science for healing. The result was complete freedom from the pain she’d experienced for years, and the problem never returned.

  • By Terri Murdock

Christian Science Perspective audio edition
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Shortly after I was married, I talked to a doctor about a problem that I had been trying to ignore. For several years I had suffered from pain down the back of my legs that was especially bad at night. He diagnosed it as sciatica and told me I could have an operation, but he advised against it. He said it would be best if I could learn to live with the pain.

The diagnosis scared me. I certainly didn’t want to live with the pain! I was a relatively new student of Christian Science, and the next day I decided it was time to get serious about addressing this problem through Christian Science. I called a Christian Science practitioner for prayerful treatment.

The practitioner helped me see that what the material senses were reporting – or even what the doctor had diagnosed – was not the reality of my being. She wasn’t saying that I had been misdiagnosed, but rather reminding me that God, divine Mind and Spirit, created me, so I was actually much more than a flawed mortal. As the spiritual idea of Mind, I could not become damaged, painful or diseased.

Divine Mind always knows us as spiritual and perfect, and we can know ourselves that way, too. We are built on a spiritual foundation upheld by Christ, Truth, not by matter. God, good, is the infinite Principle of the universe, and this condition was not in accord with God’s law of goodness. So I had divine authority to dismiss the diagnosis as not part of my true, spiritual identity.

The practitioner knew I enjoyed playing the piano, and she encouraged me to play hymns from the “Christian Science Hymnal,” singing along and focusing on the healing message behind the words. One hymn I especially loved was No. 51, which begins:

Eternal Mind the Potter is,
And thought th’ eternal clay:
The hand that fashions is divine,
His works pass not away....

God could not make imperfect man
His model infinite;
Unhallowed thought He could not plan,
Love’s work and Love must fit.
(Mary Alice Dayton)

I spent some time at the piano, singing and lingering over the healing truths in the hymns. When I finished, I was at peace and free of any pain. Since then I’ve been fully active and enjoyed a career that required me to be on my feet for many hours at a time, without any ill effects.

What particularly stands out to me from this healing is the practitioner’s absolute conviction that health and well-being are upheld by divine Mind, not medical procedures; this did away with my fear. Also meaningful was the faith I had in the truthfulness of the sweet promises of the Christian Science hymns – promises of God’s ever present love and care.

To me this experience is a powerful reminder that when we nurture a childlike trust in the power of divine Truth, healing results are assured.

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