Fresh approach to daily prayer

The idea I wanted to share came to me as my assignment for the day. I cut some notecards into squares and on each one wrote a focus for public prayer, e.g., Sunday School, church, Reading Room, the community, world leaders, journalists, parents, children, Christian Science Board of Directors, my church's Board, the Monitor, TMC Youth, the world, practitioners. I think there were a couple more.

Anyway, I shuffled the cards and then drew one for each section of the Bible Lesson this week, counting the Golden Text and Responsive Reading as an additional section. Then I worked through each section seeing how it applied to whomever was on the card. And BOY did they apply!

It occurred to me that this was specific treatment since I was taking universal truths and making them specific to a particular situation. This has expanded my thought about what specific treatment is!
-Erin

Color your prayer and have fun

One day when I was having trouble feeling in control of my own thought, I decided to write out all the erroneous blah-blah in human consciousness. I typed it out in a teal color on my computer. Then I went above that and typed in bright blue all the spiritual truths that appeared to apply to the situation. It ended with a great insight about reflection, ie being the reflection of God.

Why teal and blue? Well, I'd read an article on www.spirituality.com where a lady who had been suffering from depression thought about how Jesus walked over the waves...he didn't muddle through them. He just claimed dominion.

So I realized that right then I was in need of a helicopter to rise in thought, not a machete to whack through problems, and followed that example. The teal was the ocean of error, and the blue was the clear sky above. And because it was done in a word processor...there were no waves on the ocean! It was absolutely level and calm!

I keep seeing more and more that God is giving me inspiration in a way that I connect with. SO SO NEAT!!
- Erin

Sharing Christ healing with others

Since taking class instruction in Christian Science and especially since the last Association address on "Being a Disciple of Christ" I am finding myself more and more willing to reach out in sharing the Christ, Truth with others.

I have a friend whom I have known for over 10 years now who in the last couple of years has had several physical problems. About 2 years ago in casual conversation it somehow came out that I was a Christian Scientist, to which she immediately said, "I was raised in Christian Science, but since my marriage have gone to my husband's church."

I didn't think much more about it at the time, but recently she has had a recurrence of a problem and bad reactions to medications. I was told by someone else that she was going to try a different doctor.

Knowing I would see her at a luncheon we were to attend 2 weeks ago, I put a Science and Health in the car and was determined to ask if she'd like it. I first asked her if she still had one (was going to give her one if she said no, but she said yes.) I said I'd really like her to take time to read a little in Science and Health by Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. I thought she would find some things that might be helpful to her.

Her reply was "You know, I've been thinking about how I could get that book that gives the weekly lessons and maybe trying to read some." She didn't remember the name Christian Science Quarterly, which has the weekly Bible Lessons. She asked did I know where there was a Reading Room anywhere near her.

So, I told her about the Full-text edition of the Bible Lesson, which has the verses from the Bible and the corresponding sentences from Science and Health written out in paragraph format. I also told her that I worked in our Christian Science Reading Room and could easily send her the Full-text edition. There is not a Reading Room near her at all.

The next day at church I got the August edition of the Bible lessons, and also the July one as I thought she'd like the last Bible lesson there, too. They were in the mail the next day.

I received a beautiful thank you including the statement, "It's been a long time since I've read any Christian Science material. It was almost like coming home. I had been trying to remember the Scientific Statement of Being." [page 468 of Science and Health] She really liked the Full-text making it easier to follow the flow of the lesson.

And to think that I might not have said anything!

Lessons to me: Don't ever hold back what you can share.
Sharing is not pushing nor proselytizing, it is loving and caring.
It feels so good to be able to reach out to others with the Truth.

-LW from Minnesota

How God talks to a 4 year old

I teach the youngest class in the Sunday School --3 and 4 year olds. Last Sunday we were talking about how to communicate with God.

"Do you talk to Him on the telephone?" I asked. "No," one little boy said.
"Do you need electrical wires that reach up to the sky?" "No," he responded.
"Do you write Him letter?" "No!"

Then he looked thoughtfully at me and said, "God think talks!"

Isn't that terrific!
-Nancy from Florida

Healed of drinking wine

Some time age I began drinking a little wine ("for my stomach"...thanks Paul!) A little became a lot. I have desired to stop and I knew that I could with God's help, but I procrastinated which began chipping away at my confidence. I knew as I experienced the inspiration and enlightenment during your Association address, that I was healed of all false appetite for wine or any alcoholic drink. I even had a bottle of wine back at my hotel room. No longer was I interested. I am grateful for the pure Truth you revealed which met my unexpressed need for help, and led me to a profound repentance.

- DM

Shoulder healed

We had a visitor to the church. He was a self-described atheist, very Bohemian in nature with a degree in Psychology and a belief in Buddism. He has lived a large life, with a lot of self hatred. He told me he currently works as a general handyman doing repairs and was having tremendous physical issues especially with his shoulders and knees. He had recently read a book entitled: “A Course In Miracles”, and said that it had led him to Christian Science.

I began by illustrating the two records of creation in Genesis, over and over until he seemed to understand that the mist of materiality (2nd chapter of Genesis) was obscuring his true identity as a perfect child of God (1st chapter of Genesis). We talked briefly after church and sometimes on the phone for a week or two expanding the concepts, and I tried to hold the perfect image of man for him during the week.

Then he told me that he was experiencing almost a full range of motion in his shoulders without pain for the first time in years. The progress physically has continued so that he can now work on his knees, and I continue to work trying to expand his views away from that of the materially mental, manacled man that he had accepted. Last night after Wednesday evening service, he told me that he had never felt God’s Love for him, but he had that morning!

- R. Rhine