Healing is meant to be

“It just wasn’t meant to be.” Have you ever heard yourself or another say that? Things didn’t turn out the way we thought they would, and we resign ourselves to assuming that’s the end of the story.

It’s, in essence, the answer a man in ancient Jerusalem gave when Jesus asked if he’d like to be healed of a physical problem he’d had for 38 years (see John 5:2-9). This man felt that his only pathway to health was to enter a pool thought to have healing water, and there were just too many obstacles preventing him from being able to get in at the right time.

Yet Jesus set all of those suppositions aside and immediately healed him. The man arose and went on his way, without ever having set foot into that water.

What had changed? Certainly none of the circumstances. But Jesus brought with him a different viewpoint – a spiritual outlook on health – that turned a seeming “it wasn’t meant to be” scenario into one of healing, right then.

What was it that Jesus knew that enabled the scene to shift so dramatically? A clue can be found in this statement from the Christian Science textbook, “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy: “Jesus beheld in Science the perfect man, who appeared to him where sinning mortal man appears to mortals. In this perfect man the Saviour saw God’s own likeness, and this correct view of man healed the sick” (pp. 476-477).

Because God, who created us, is divine Spirit, “God’s own likeness” and “mortal man” are mutually incompatible. As God’s likeness, we are spiritual and whole, not mortal and defective. Christ, Truth, enables us to discern and demonstrate this spiritual reality, this consistency of good, that Jesus proved – even when circumstances seem unyielding. Jesus’ healing works were not the result of happenstance or occasional divine interventions; rather, they gave evidence of repeatable, demonstrable, understandable spiritual law – which Christian Science elucidates.

We don’t need to accept that disease, failure, or any other type of negative circumstances are inevitable. Instead, what Christian Science makes plain is that health and well-being and harmony are truly inevitable – not in some afterlife, but right now. Rather than starting from the standpoint that a problem has valid power, we can pray to know that God, Spirit, alone is supreme. We can apply what we learn of this law to our own lives, overcoming resignation and instead realizing our innate health as sustained by Spirit, good.

This statement in the Bible shows the outcome of doing so: “Commit thy way unto the Lord; trust also in him; and he shall bring it to pass” (Psalms 37:5). That conscientious commitment to welcome Christ, to learn and follow God’s way, reveals enduring solutions, healing, and progress.

Years ago I had pain in my back and leg that seemed relentless. At times I thought I would simply have to learn to accommodate it indefinitely. But I instinctively rebelled against the idea that healing wasn’t meant to be and renewed my prayers all the more.

At one point I did a deep study of the Bible story mentioned earlier. As I gained a fuller glimpse of the Science behind what Jesus knew that freed that man – and countless others – from a seemingly unyielding problem, the condition simply faded away, never to return.

This poem by Mrs. Eddy conveys the tender wisdom of seeing healing as natural:

Father-Mother good, lovingly
     Thee I seek, –
     Patient, meek,
In the way Thou hast, –
Be it slow or fast,
     Up to Thee.
(“Poems,” p. 69)