I recently had a conversation with someone about health care. When I told him that I was a Christian Scientist and depended upon prayer for the cure of illness, he mentioned that he felt Christian Science was “out there.” He was kind and respectful, but behind his comment was the impression that prayer is not a dependable way to treat disease.
Everyone’s health choices are personal, and as a Christian Scientist, I am not under any church edict. But prayer has met my health, as well as my religious, needs time and time again.
I am not alone in valuing prayer as a significant means of healing. A 2008 Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life Survey found that 36 percent of Americans surveyed reported that they had experienced or witnessed a divine healing of an illness or injury.
Christian Science founder Mary Baker Eddy found that understanding God as unconditional Love and everlasting Life heals disease. She taught that effective prayer was not blind faith, but learning more about God each day, acknowledging His presence.
In her landmark book on Christian healing and salvation, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, she wrote, “The physical healing of Christian Science results now, as in Jesus’ time, from the operation of divine Principle, before which sin and disease lose their reality in human consciousness and disappear as naturally and as necessarily as darkness gives place to light and sin to reformation. Now, as then, these mighty works are not supernatural, but supremely natural.”
Recently, I suffered from an eruption on my body. I could have gone to an emergency care center and have it treated, but I decided to turn to Christian Science for healing since I have found it so effective in my life before. I found that as I studied The Bible and Science and Health, including the passage quoted above, I felt the love of God conquer my fears and reassure me of His divine healing presence.
The healing came quickly and naturally. It was a beautiful spiritual experience – feeling God’s love and having my body restored to health.
This kind of healing is possible for everyone. As we look deeper into sacred texts and into our own hearts, we can find the nature of God that brings health and wholeness into the lives of all of us.
