Located on the corner of Macquarie and Bligh Streets in Barton.
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Sunday Services and Sunday School are at 10.00 am. Wednesday Testimony Meetings are at 6.15 pm. Both these sessions are available via telephone: Dial – 02 6102 0608 and use meeting code: 60970#
Recently I experienced all the symptoms of a heavy head cold. It just seemed to sneak up on me as the day progressed.
I was fairly determined to not give in to this feeling and I accomplished all I needed to during the day but by the evening I felt physically overwhelmed by the symptoms and the unwell feeling. However, during the day I had been reminding myself that my true nature was spiritual – the image and likeness of God, as the Bible tell us (Genesis 1: 26, 27) and if God didn’t have a cold then really nor could I. Although I didn’t feel well I didn’t feel beaten by this situation. My mental well-being still felt very intact.
In the evening as I didn’t feel capable of doing anything physical, I curled up in my favourite chair and decided to listen to the Wednesday Testimony Meeting readings on the phone. They were perfect for me! The topic was spiritual healing and I became engrossed in the words and the message – a message that reminded me that I could mentally stand up to claims of ill-health. The readings assured me that matter couldn’t make conditions for me because Mind was the only cause. At the end of the readings I felt calm and forgot to think much about the cold situation.
That night I slept through peacefully and woke in the morning 100% well. There was not a single trace of the condition. Later that next day my husband and I took the dog on a long walk and we jogged much of the way. I kept up easily and pulled up after each jog without any puffing. I felt more energised than I had in a long time.
For this and all the other healings I have experienced through relying on the truths taught in Christian Science I am truly grateful. Armed with this understanding I approach each day with confidence and joy.
A recording of the readings mentioned above are posted on this blog below under the heading, Spiritual Healing – Past and Present.
Whatsoever things are lovely,
whatsoever things are of good report;
if there be any virtue,
and if there be any praise,
think on these things.
(The Bible – Philippians 4: 8)
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At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy)
The members of the Christian Science community in Canberra share their experiences and thoughts on Christian Science:
A few months ago, I found I was struggling with a painful strained wrist. I believed it to be RSI or Repetitive Strain Injury. This seemed so bad that I was having great difficulty fulfilling everyday essential tasks.
I asked help from my sister who is a Christian Science practitioner in England. A Christian Science practitioner is someone who devotes their life to helping others through prayer – a spiritual healer.
When my sister later looked up RSI on the internet, she was amused by one definition that came up as ‘Relative Strength Indicator’ relating to the stock market. …a rather less intimidating definition!
She referred me to hymn 350 from the Christian Science Hymnal, which tells me in part:
Through the love of God our Saviour
All will be well; …
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While His truth we are applying,
And upon His love relying,
God is every need supplying,
All, all is well.
Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy is the textbook of Christian Science. It was written to teach readers how to heal spiritually. I keep a little notebook of citations from it that I find helpful. On this occasion these were some of the ideas that helped me:
Let us feel the divine energy of Spirit, bringing us into newness of life and recognizing no mortal nor material power as able to destroy (p249).
Consciousness, as well as action, is governed by Mind, – is in God, … (p480).
All that God imparts moves in accord with Him, reflecting goodness and power (p515).
Constant toil, deprivations, exposures, and all untoward conditions, if without sin, can be experienced without suffering. Whatever it is your duty to do, you can do without harm to yourself. If you sprain the muscles or wound the flesh, your remedy is at hand. Mind decides whether or not the flesh shall be discolored, painful, swollen, and inflamed (385).
I was grateful to have the extra time staying at home to study and grow.
In a month or so there was much improvement – so much so that it was no longer uppermost in my thought and then it disappeared without further notice!
I am so grateful for all that Christian Science has given me, and for my sister’s patient care.
Wednesday Testimony Meeting Readings
This recording is of readings on the topic: Spiritual Healing
(Apology: Nature in the form of a wild white sulphur-crested cockatoo has made his presence felt little raucously on this audio.)
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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. (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p14)
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Every Wednesday at 6.15pm a Testimony Meeting is held at the Christian Science church in Canberra (corner of Macquarie and Bligh Streets, Barton). At these meetings short readings on a particular topic are followed by time for members of the congregation to share how they have been helped and healed through prayer.
Everyone is welcome. If you are in Canberra on any Wednesday, please join us.
The members of the Christian Science community in Canberra share their experiences and thoughts on Christian Science:
My heart is full of gratitude to God for His constant care and the teachings of the Holy Bible together with a greater awareness of who I am really as taught through the writings of Mary Baker Eddy. Mrs Eddy shared her ideas with the world through the teachings of Christian Science which she discovered through a personal healing in the year 1866.
She explains that through a better understanding of God we can have healing experiences as promised by our Wayshower, Jesus Christ. He reminded us that with God all things are possible and that the wonderful works which he did were available to all and not restricted to any time in human history.
I would like to share how I was healed of headaches early in my study of Christian Science. At this time of my life I was working in a job which put me constantly attending to the public and expected to be always bright, smiling and attentive to the needs of others.
Sometimes this was a challenge as I was bothered by headaches. One particular day as I went about my business I asked myself if I thought that God could have a headache. I already knew a bit about God, His goodness and purity, His all-power and presence, and His constant love for His children, His ideas, totally inseparable from the Creator. God, the author of man, could not have a headache.
Next question – well, could I, as one of those children, possibly have a headache? Answer, totally impossible! I could have only what God gave me and that was all good, so no headache in that goodness. The throbbing vanished immediately, and for all time. The healing was immediate and remained permanent.
Over the intervening years, which are many, I have not had another headache. I cannot say that the temptation has not tapped on the door of my consciousness, but it is briskly dismissed because I know that this suggestion has been dealt with and I do not need to cover that old ground again. To use the words of Jesus, “Get thee behind me, Satan” (Matt 4:10). Satan is a Hebrew word signifying an adversary, an enemy, an accuser. Sometimes I would simply declare: I don’t do headaches.
As I write about this experience I also recall another proof of the completeness of the healing many years later. I was working in an office at the time, and as people went home from work they walked past my desk as they stepped into the lift. On this particular day as one of the ladies left she said she couldn’t wait to go home as she had such a terrible headache. I mentally cried out, “There is no such thing as a headache” God does not have them or give them, so they cannot exist.
A very short time later the lift returned and this same lady stepped out of the lift and asked, “Did you pray for me? By the time I got to ground level the headache had gone” The office was four floors above ground level. This person knew that I prayed about things, but as I recall I just smiled and said “no such thing as a headache”.
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A Daily Lift by Deborah Huebsch
If you are faced with a difficult past experience and realise the need to move on, is it possible or necessary to forgive?
Deborah gives a helpful account from her own experience.
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… look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen; for the things which are seen are temporal, but the things which are not seen are eternal.
(The Bible – II Corinthians 4: 18)
The members of the Christian Science community in Canberra share their experiences and thoughts on Christian Science:
A few years ago my husband wanted to give me a surprise for our anniversary. He knew I loved horses and that in my youth I had gone on a few short trail rides which I loved. This year he had the romantic idea that escaping our city life for a weekend of riding horses through the bushland in the Blue Mountains west of Sydney would be a good plan. My husband has never been a horse rider and knows very little about horses.
When he presented me with the gift vouchers I was filled with some very mixed emotions. I could see that he was trying hard to please me – that was nice. But, an eight-hour ride through very rugged territory, when I hadn’t been on a horse for about twenty years, seemed daunting in ways he couldn’t imagine. I prayed about this. I reasoned that all good ideas come from God and God’s ideas don’t have a downside. I also know that the beliefs I hold about life determine the nature of this material experience. I tried to stay focused on a conviction that my true nature is spiritual, not material. Only matter feels pain, not spirit.
My husband, as a novice rider, was given Fred, an elderly plodder. However, he had told the stables that I could ride well and I was given Jeda, a young thoroughbred-cross who really wanted to turn everything into a race. I’d been on the horse for about fifteen minutes when I realised that the saddle was horribly uncomfortable; it had two hard ridges that dug into the bones in my bottom.
During the eight-hour outing we spent nearly seven hours in the saddle. The countryside was amazing. We rode across green paddocks with cows, through mountain streams, up and down steep hillsides and along winding forest trails. It was truly beautiful. At every point in the day my Jeda wanted to race ahead and I spent the whole day calming her and reining her in. Even when we were waiting for slow Fred to catch up she pulled and pranced. She was exhausting!
It was late afternoon when we arrived back at our accommodation. I was so sore I felt physically sick. I fell on the bed and thought I would never be able to move again. Every muscle in my body screamed and protested. I thought I had mentally protected myself before the ride but I realised that I hadn’t really given up the idea that this activity could be punishing. In Christian Science, we are taught that what we let into consciousness, is what we experience. So while I lay there on the bed I had a mental reassessment.
A passage from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy helped me to gain some peace. She asks: Without mind, could the muscles be tired? Do the muscles talk, or do you talk for them? Matter is non‐intelligent. Mortal mind does the false talking, and that which affirms weariness, made that weariness (p217:31). I realized that I had given myself permission to be affected by this ride, so mentally I took back that permission.
Within a very short time I was up and getting cleaned up to go out to dinner. There was not a single twinge anywhere – I walked straight and tall and pain free. We had a happy night and the rest of the weekend was active and harmonious. There were absolutely no after-effects.
I am continually grateful to Christian Science which teaches me that I don’t have to give in to material laws. All right activity can be undertaken without penalty.
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A Daily Lift by Sancy Nason, a Christian Science Practitioner.
In this 3 minute talk Sancy describes how her needs were met in a most unusual way during a hike in the bushland of Ku-ring-gai National Park near Sydney.
A new 3 minute inspirational talk is shared each day Monday-Friday. To listen to more click on the Daily Lift tab in the menu above.
