Free From Sickness

How do you react when you hear it said that it's allergy or flu season? Many individuals go into "dread mode" and seek to find help in medications and shots.

Others understand that sickness is not inevitable, and that it is possible to say with conviction that illness is not an option for anyone!

Those two reactions-one of dread, the other of conviction-are as opposite as day and night. The first may be occasioned by memories of unpleasant days in which sickness has run its course. It's often considered natural to react with fear to the threat of suffering. But a spiritual understanding that God loves His creation and cannot cause even one of us to experience inharmony of any sort is a sound approach to healing. It's natural to be confident of healing when illness threatens, when we learn that sickness is neither created nor sustained by God.

Christian Science, discovered by Mary Baker Eddy, elucidates what the Bible teaches, especially that God is the only creator and is entirely good. God, who is omnipotent, is incapable of creating anything that could oppose Him. It would not be reasonable for God to cause something that could thwart the good He creates. The fact that illness isn't good proves that God does not cause it. And if He doesn't cause something, it has no existence.

These are radical statements, but their truth and practicality can be proved. Anyone willing to bring the teachings of Christ Jesus to bear on his or her situation will find this out.

Jesus made plain the powerlessness of evil. He often healed sickness. To our benefit, the Bible records many of his healings. The Gospel of Matthew, for example, features the healing of Simon Peter's mother-in-law, who was sick with a fever (see 8:14, 15). Evidently Jesus saw fever as no part of that woman, and this is why she was immediately free of it. There was no period of recovery; according to the Bible, she quickly resumed her work. Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, the textbook of Christian Science written by Mrs. Eddy, says: "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).

Many years ago I dreaded the flu. I caught it almost every year, and there seemed to be nothing I could do except suffer for days. But as my understanding of Christian Science deepened, I realized I had the power to refuse to believe sickness was a reality instead of giving in to it.

The last time I had the flu, I was a full-time college student and was holding down a job. When the symptoms appeared I declared that I didn't have time to be sick! More to the point, I did have time to reflect on the healing truth of God that is seen in the teachings of Jesus and is explained by Christian Science.

For instance, I knew that as a child of God I was removed from discord. I remembered that God loved me and that He could not subject me to anything that would hinder my ability to glorify Him. I declared that something such as sickness, which is unreal to God and thus has no history or reality, could not inflict itself on me. I saw that there is nothing to dread in God's perfect creation. Even though the flu symptoms persisted during that day, I was able to do all my work. That evening I asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. And before bedtime I was completely free of all those symptoms. Furthermore, I have not had the flu once in the thirty-five years since that healing.

Science and Health includes this statement: "Become conscious for a single moment that Life and intelligence are purely spiritual,-neither in nor of matter,-and the body will then utter no complaints. If suffering from a belief in sickness, you will find yourself suddenly well" (p. 14). Pondering that statement, and many like it, is of practical help when healing is needed.

We can come to see God's omnipotence clearly. That's when we can best face any illness that might threaten. Healing comes to those who stand firm, claiming their spiritual identity and their immunity from discord.