"It is well,
it is well,
with my soul…"
When I consider the Truth behind the following healing, I can almost hear Amy Grant's, "It is Well," echoing in my heart.
This healing starts with my friend Emily. One Wednesday evening, she stood up at our mid-week testimony meeting and shared a recent healing she'd experienced.
She said that during an overseas expedition she broke her collarbone. The injury required that she return home early and have it attended to by a physician. She was grateful for his/her kind care. After the initial examination and stabilization of the shoulder, Emily thanked him -- moving forward in praying, exercising movement, expecting healing, and expressing freedom.
And yet, when she later went back for a follow-up visit, the physician was not surprised by what new x-rays reported. The healing was proceeding according to his expectations. There was no exclamation of a miraculous healing. He was not at all surprised by the progress that had -- or hadn't, in his assessment -- taken place.
You may think that this sounds a bit anti-climatic, but for me it was amazing. It was exactly what I needed to hear. Emily was fine. Emily was the one that was somewhat surprised his assessment. She was pain-free and was able to hike and bike with full range of motion. She was surprised that the x-rays and the doctor's evaluation didn't reflect the freedom that she was feeling.
But isn't that wonderful! To realize that there was little, or no, correlation between the freedom that Emily was actually experiencing, and the x-rayed image of the bone, or the doctor's opinion. It didn't change the fact -- Emily was free.
I can't even begin to express how much it meant to me that the "body" could be reporting -- through an X-ray -- that nothing had really changed, and yet Emily was free.
It begged the question: "Where are you getting your information from?" and "What evidence are you letting inform your prayers, your hopes, your confidence?"
This realization had an immediate effect on a physical situation I'd been praying about for weeks. Yes, I'd felt the power of the Word in my prayers. I'd felt freedom from the paralyzing fear that this situation was persistent and incurable. I'd felt inspired and clear. But each day when confronted with persistent aggressive symptoms, I'd be on my knees wondering what more I needed to know, pray, feel.
Emily's healing gave me the courage to, as Mary Baker Eddy suggests in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:
This healing starts with my friend Emily. One Wednesday evening, she stood up at our mid-week testimony meeting and shared a recent healing she'd experienced.
She said that during an overseas expedition she broke her collarbone. The injury required that she return home early and have it attended to by a physician. She was grateful for his/her kind care. After the initial examination and stabilization of the shoulder, Emily thanked him -- moving forward in praying, exercising movement, expecting healing, and expressing freedom.
And yet, when she later went back for a follow-up visit, the physician was not surprised by what new x-rays reported. The healing was proceeding according to his expectations. There was no exclamation of a miraculous healing. He was not at all surprised by the progress that had -- or hadn't, in his assessment -- taken place.
You may think that this sounds a bit anti-climatic, but for me it was amazing. It was exactly what I needed to hear. Emily was fine. Emily was the one that was somewhat surprised his assessment. She was pain-free and was able to hike and bike with full range of motion. She was surprised that the x-rays and the doctor's evaluation didn't reflect the freedom that she was feeling.
But isn't that wonderful! To realize that there was little, or no, correlation between the freedom that Emily was actually experiencing, and the x-rayed image of the bone, or the doctor's opinion. It didn't change the fact -- Emily was free.
I can't even begin to express how much it meant to me that the "body" could be reporting -- through an X-ray -- that nothing had really changed, and yet Emily was free.
It begged the question: "Where are you getting your information from?" and "What evidence are you letting inform your prayers, your hopes, your confidence?"
This realization had an immediate effect on a physical situation I'd been praying about for weeks. Yes, I'd felt the power of the Word in my prayers. I'd felt freedom from the paralyzing fear that this situation was persistent and incurable. I'd felt inspired and clear. But each day when confronted with persistent aggressive symptoms, I'd be on my knees wondering what more I needed to know, pray, feel.
Emily's healing gave me the courage to, as Mary Baker Eddy suggests in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures:
"Look away from the body,
into Truth and Love…"
Suddenly it became ludicrous to me that I had been looking to the body for an "all clear." I'd been listening for its report, waiting for it to tell me whether I was whole, sound, strong, and free.
Instead I began asking Truth and Love -- God -- what was true, and what I was capable of. Could I love? Yes. Could I pray? Yes. Was I capable of answering the phone, walking to my office, being still, helping others? Yes.
The body and it's reports of discomfort, weakness, exhaustion -- the chronic rehashing of symptoms -- was no different than that x-ray Emily had been shown, or the doctor's interpretation of its message. He assessed it based on his best thinking, but was it true? In like fashion, I had been looking at, listening to, assessing, and interpreting what my body was saying -- but was it true?
When I stopped asking it for information -- and then giving weight and meaning to that information -- I was free. Free from taking the pulse of the situation, and then determining my peace, my capabilities, or how to pray, based on its report. I stopped trying to read meaning into that report. And at some point, I realized that I was free from believing that it told me anything about my life.
Elsewhere in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, Mary Baker Eddy asks:
"Where shall the gaze rest
but in the unsearchable
realm of Mind?
We must look where we would walk,
and we must act as possessing all power
from Him in whom we have our being."
but in the unsearchable
realm of Mind?
We must look where we would walk,
and we must act as possessing all power
from Him in whom we have our being."
I realized that I could - at any given moment - get my information from God, and immediately act as possessing all power from Him in whom I have my being. And I did.
This deeper, Soul-sense has changed everything. When we are willing to be still -- nevertheless, constant, consistent -- we are going to God for our information, and we know exactly what we need to know. This report is changeless -- I am well, you are well, we are well -- whole, pure, complete, strong, kindly-affectioned, God-sent, free.
offered with Love,
Kate
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