Eye healed during church service
Recognizing that God, good, is always present has powerful healing effects.
One Wednesday evening years ago, I was serving as an usher at the weekly testimony meeting at my local branch Church of Christ, Scientist.
The meeting had just started when I felt something abrasive in my eye. It was puzzling, because I knew nothing had flown into it. So, I went down the hall to look in the mirror to find out what was going on. I saw that there was something foreign deep in the eye.
My first thought was, “This is going to require surgery.” That threw me momentarily, but on the heels of it, I found myself turning to God in prayer as I headed back to the lobby. This purposeful shift in thought brought me back to my natural trust in God for healing.
From studying Christian Science, I had learned that the truth that Jesus said would make us free (see John 8:32) quiets fears. As the congregation was listening to inspired readings from the Bible and from “Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures” by Mary Baker Eddy (the discoverer of Christian Science), I intently and wholeheartedly reached out to God for help with the expectation of hearing an answer. I was praying from the standpoint of what I knew about God and what Christian Science teaches and proves to be spiritually true.
The thought that came to me in a powerful way was that God, Truth, fills all space and is doing so right here and now. The Bible so beautifully expresses this assurance from God in Jeremiah 23:24: “Do not I fill heaven and earth?” Science and Health says, referring to God, “He fills all space, and it is impossible to conceive of such omnipresence and individuality except as infinite Spirit or Mind” (p. 331). I felt that this was undoubtedly true, because that is the nature of infinite Spirit, God. This was the first time I had felt this truth so vividly and precisely. I really held to it as a lifeline.
This truth filled my thought and dispelled the fear as I continued to pray, and I felt myself trusting and resting in it. A sense of peace and calm was being ushered into my thought. And I became aware that the abrasive sensation was lessening. I remember being so thankful for God’s loving presence.
On my way home after the service, I was aware that there was no longer any abrasive feeling in my eye. I knew that something truly holy and enlightening had happened to me that evening. When I got home, I looked in the mirror and could clearly see that what had been there an hour or so before was now nowhere to be found.
I have to say that I was surprised to see such a transformation, but my very next thought was, “Oh, so this is what Mrs. Eddy meant regarding matter when she wrote that ‘its conditions are illusions.’” These words are part of this statement on page 368 of Science and Health: “Because matter has no consciousness or Ego, it cannot act; its conditions are illusions, and these false conditions are the source of all seeming sickness.” This experience proved to me that the physical condition was not a real “something” after all, because God did not cause or create it. And because it was not spiritually true or good, it was not included in God’s reality, and consequently not in mine.
This healing will always stand out to me as proof of the power and presence of God and the effectiveness of Christian Science. Spirit, Truth, really does lovingly fill all space. As Science and Health promises on page 520: “The depth, breadth, height, might, majesty, and glory of infinite Love fill all space. That is enough!”
Adapted from a testimony published in the Sept. 20, 2021, issue of the Christian Science Sentinel.