HEALINGS THROUGH CHRISTIAN SCIENCE

Recently, I’ve spoken with two people who know almost nothing about Christian Science but who are both seeking solutions and are open to exploring alternatives to the usual medical methods offered.  It’s therefore encouraging to read testimonies of healing in Christian Science.  It shows what is possible.   

The testimonies Peel has chosen are very moving, and I like to notice what elements were present in each healing example.  Let’s take a look at the first two he offers his readers.

 

But before we go to the testimonies, it’s interesting to note that Peel points out something very pertinent.  He writes on page 52: “...those who choose to rely on Christian Science are not in their view sanguinely choosing nothing.  They are choosing the tangible somethingness of divine law – the healing power of God – that has been effectively demonstrated in the lives of some families for four and five generations.” 

The dictionary says that “sanguine” means “expecting things to go well”.  Just expecting a good outcome may sometimes appear to be what a Christian Scientist is doing, but healing in Christian Science really is turning to divine law as we shall see.

The first healing

Mrs. Doris Wiederkehr reported that when physicians informed them that there was “little that could be done” for the (unwanted) child that the Wiederkehr family had been invited to adopt, she “could not accept this verdict”(p. 54).  Despite all predictions, the boy survived and each condition diagnosed was “healed – through prayer, love, and hard work” (p. 55).  I suspect part of the “hard work” included “a great deal of tutoring at home” (p. 55).  Mrs. Wiederkehr revealed that “the physical deformities didn’t bother” her, and she “never doubted that he wouldn’t find his complete freedom” (p. 57).  Furthermore, the lad himself “just kept me trusting and expecting” (p. 57).

 

Finally they were allowed to rely on Christian Science and “in less than three months he was standing upright” (p. 58).  The family “gave him time to answer” when they spoke to him even though he could not yet answer verbally.  And when an intruder appeared, the not yet five year old, who had never spoken before, blurted out something he had obviously heard from his family: “No other gods before you” (p. 59).  

 

One by one, the difficulties were healed.  The heart condition (p. 61) was healed when he was eight and Doris “sat and prayed and read to him”, until she had to get dinner so she “put on the records of Science and Health”.  The healing of co-ordination and balance came as Doris learned “not to get hurt when somebody took advantage” of the boy.  They would “put little verses in his pocket” like “Be still and know that I am God”.  Doris told him “that God had need of him” (p. 62).  And unnatural heaving bleeding was healed when friends became hysterical at the sight of the bleeding and a neighbour said “Honey, Les, doesn’t your mother tell you God is Love?” and the lad responded and the bleeding stopped.

 

Doris admits that much more than human love, vital as it is, is needed for healing.  She said: “..divine Love does the healing. And that takes a lot of praying, forgiving, it takes patience it takes listening, it takes being directed and allowing yourself to let God’s will and not yours unfold.”  I love this (p. 63): “Lov[e] the best that you’re demonstrating at this moment.  If we’re exasperated with a friend or with a part of our body or with a lack of talent that we think we lack, or anything, we can’t hear good.”

 

The second healing

John Ondrak was angry and resentful at losing his career in the police force as the result of an accident which left him a cripple for twelve years, and was in daily pain that he “had learned to live with” until he could take it no longer.  His testimony says: “As I held the gun in my hand, I heard my wife quietly say, “There is a better way...why don’t you try Christian Science”” (p. 64)?  

 

So he started reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.  But the pain was so intense, that he later “threw the book across the room” (p. 65).  His wife then offered this counsel: “You must forget about yourself and find out about God and your relationship to Him.”  Even though he did not want to hear this, he recognized his wife’s “deep love and compassion” and knew he “had to try once more”.  Now “the words came alive with meaning” and he “lost all sense of time”.  “The Bible, the textbook, and a dictionary were ...constant companions”.

 

He adds that when he “put personal self aside” the “truth that makes all men free came alive for me, as it will for anyone who earnestly seeks Truth” (p. 66).

 

He was completely healed.

 

All through the years, of course, John’s wife Nancy Ondrak must have been praying.  Indeed at the outset she testifies that her first thought was “to immediately acknowledge the ever-presence of God and to know that not for an instant was [her] husband outside His all-enveloping love” (p. 66).  And John had witnessed her healing when “a can of paint remover had spilled into her eyes and face” (p. 67).   His thought was being prepared to accept what his wife later gently suggested would help him!

 

I am so grateful for these lovely examples of healing, restoration, and transformation.

 

Julie Swannell