This recording is of the readings on the topic:Secure Amid the Storm.
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For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.
(The Bible KJV – Romans 8: 38, 39)
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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.
The members of the Christian Science community in Canberra share their healings and thoughts on Christian Science:
A poem by Mary Baker Eddy, the founder of Christian Science, helped this writer over come the stress of a crowded work agenda. The poem, titled Satisfied, has been set to music and included in the Christian Science Hymnal.
It matters not what be thy lot, So Love doth guide; For storm or shine, pure peace is thine, Whate’er betide.
And of these stones, or tyrants’ thrones, God able is To raise up seed — in thought and deed — To faithful His.
Aye, darkling sense, arise, go hence! Our God is good. False fears are foes — truth tatters those, When understood.
Love looseth thee, and lifteth me, Ayont hate’s thrall: There Life is light, and wisdom might, And God is All.
The centuries break, the earth-bound wake, God’s glorified! Who doth His will — His likeness still — Is satisfied.
Towards the end of my employment with the Department of Education. I had a very busy job; most weeks I put in 50-60 hours and still didn’t feel on top of the workload. One evening a friend gave me a ticket to a Music Aviva concert because he thought I could do with a break. However, my head was so filled with all the tasks I had to complete in the next few weeks that I heard nothing of the music and went home feeling still very much under pressure. At home I sat down and made a list of all the activities I had to organise before the end of the school term which was coming up fast. I thought this might help clear my head. In all I had 26 events to organise. Some were staff meetings I had to give, others were full day workshops and training days, some were mediation and review meetings. I had very little clerical support so all of the organisation fell to me – the catering, the bookings, the paperwork, the course content.
Writing it all down didn’t help at all. While I was doing this my son called me. He was living interstate at the time. He asked if I would pray for him with regard to a physical problem that was restricting him somewhat. Of course I was happy to help him, but it felt like just one more thing that was asked of me.
In desperation I turned to God and asked: ‘How do I do all this?’ The answer was very firm: ‘You don’t. I do.’ This idea had and immediate calming effect. I felt led to open my hymnal to hymn 160 – Mary Baker Eddy’s Satisfied. The words were like a balm to my soul. The ideas held such comfort that straight away I felt the sense of pressure drain away. I knew I was safe because “God able is”. I realised that all right activities were God’s activities, and He was the one that brought them to fruition, not me.
It was the fourth verse that particularly stood out to me:
Love looseth thee, and lifteth me, Ayont hate’s thrall: There Life is light, and wisdom might, And God is All.
As I read these words I felt lifted above the human picture that said I had an impossibly crowded agenda. I actually felt the lightness of Life – lightness as in not heavy. I also saw that Love loosed my son from his belief of restriction. I was able to let all sense of personal responsibility go and rested in God’s love.
The next day I had a phone call from my son to say the physical problem was completely resolved. He was very pleased. All the activities I had scheduled were completed successfully and I can honestly say there was not a moment of pressure or stress. Every event or activity was a joy in its preparation and unfoldment. Not since that night have I ever felt pressure over human activities or schedules again. Always now I know that ‘Love doth guide’ and ‘God is gloried’ and I am satisfied.
The members of the Christian Science community in Canberra share their healings and thoughts on Christian Science:
A few weeks ago I went to the movies in the afternoon with my daughter and her friend.
As the movie started, I began to feel unwell. I tried to pray but, found it difficult to shut out the noise and images from the movie and felt worse as the movie progressed.
At the end, I left the cinema as quickly as I could and found a place to throw up.
My daughter and her friend didn’t know anything about this and drove to my place to join my other daughter and her family for an evening meal with us.
When I arrived home, I told everyone I wasn’t feeling well enough to eat and went and lay down. I took some Christian Science Journals and the textbook of Christian Science,Science & Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. I started reading the March Journal and came across an article by Mary Beattie: “Truth Communicates Itself”. I became absorbed reading this and other articles and suddenly realised about an hour later that I was hungry. I was totally healed. I am very grateful for what I am learning in Christian Science.
A couple of weeks ago I was looking at this Canberra blog site and found a list of testimonies. The first one caught my attention because it featured chooks and I love chooks. The testifier told of gathering eggs from her chook run and then stepping on to a rusty nail amidst the chook manure. She became quite fearful having heard of the claims of tetanus. She then explained how she came to a healing conclusion as a result of her life-long study of Christian Science
A couple of days later I was walking around the house in socks and I felt a sharp pain in my foot. There was a rusty needle embedded in it. My thoughts went on fast forward. Then I thought, “what about that testimony you read?’ I read it again and gradually the fear began to subside but lingered a little.
The next day I joined a Zoom testimony meeting at the Christian Science church in Redcliffe, Queensland. A lady told of pruning roses and of a thorn becoming embedded in her arm. It looked quite ominous but she prayed diligently and after a few days all was well. After listening to that testimony all fear completely vanished.
The next day my cat came home with a battered face and there were puncture wounds. He had obviously been in a fight. I couldn’t take him to the vet as I didn’t have use of a car. I got some water and cotton wool and he pushed me away as if to say, “You’re not washing my face!” I said to him this has all been proven, well and truly – by the testifiers in Canberra and in Redcliffe and my own experience and you are not the exception to the rule. The next morning he went out and was gone all day and didn’t come back till after dark. It was apparent that the healing was going forward quickly and in no time there was no evidence of the wound.
Thanks to your church for putting the testimonies on your web site. Thanks to the testifiers from your church and Redcliffe and for my own healing. And thanks to Gussy for being proof that “All of God’s creatures moving in the harmony of Science are harmless, useful, indestructible.” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p514)
This recording is of the readings on the topic: Miracles – Divine Law in Action
The Sea of Galilee at sunrise.
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The miracle introduces no disorder, but unfolds the primal order, establishing the Science of God’s unchanging law.
There is to-day danger of repeating the offence of the Jews by limiting the Holy One of Israel and asking: “Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?” What cannot God do?
This recording is of the readings on the topic: Peace
Spiritual living and blessedness are the only evidences, by which we can recognize true existence and feel the unspeakable peace which comes from an all-absorbing spiritual love. (p264)
Revenge is inadmissible. (p22)
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:
Recently, a close relative phoned from a hotel room in London, very distressed that he hadn’t been allowed to board his flight home because he’d tested positive to COVID. He was told he wouldn’t be allowed to fly until he tested negative, so he was uncertain about how long this might take.
A few months ago he’d contracted COVID in Portugal and had a difficult time, with many delays and much bureaucratic red tape before getting cleared to fly home. I think this had remained with him and he felt as if he was going through the same nightmare again.
He told me he was feeling very alone and miserable and sobbed into the phone “I just want to go home”. I immediately thought “you are already at home”, you can’t be separated from your Father Mother God, divine Love.
We talked about these ideas and that week’s Bible Lesson on Reality that said anything inharmonious or discordant is not real – it is just an illusion or dream which we can wake up from. When we hung up the thought came to me to look at Hymn 144 (from the Christian Science Hymnal) which begins –
In atmosphere of Love divine,
We live, and move, and breathe;
Though mortal eyes may see it not,
‘Tis sense that would deceive.
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Then a couple of pages later is Hymn 148 which says:
In heavenly Love abiding,
No change my heart shall fear;
And safe is such confiding,
For nothing changes here.
The storm may roar without me,
My heart may low be laid;
But God is round about me,
And can I be dismayed?
I sent him a text message suggesting he look at these hymns for comfort. It was Sunday morning in London and he was about to go to Church.
The next day (Monday) when I phoned, he was much calmer, and in a queue, to get a COVID test. He said he had been praying with ideas from that week’s lesson and felt confident it would be negative and had booked to fly home on the Wednesday evening. On Wednesday morning he phoned to say the test had returned negative and he was cleared to fly. He has since contacted me to let me know he is safely home. He gives full credit to Christian Science for this healing.
A few hours before that first phone call from London, I’d received an email from a friend who I’d recently had lunch with telling me he’d tested positive for COVID. I became really worried because I had child minding duties the next day and catch ups organised with friends over the next few days and had been feeling a bit off colour since flying back from Brisbane a week earlier. With all these thoughts and emotions swirling around I was struggling to pray and calm my fear. So, the phone call from my relative came at exactly the right time. I was quickly lifted out of feeling sorry and fearful for myself and into the realm where all is perfect and harmonious. I knew I was okay, but did a couple of COVID tests to calm the fears of those around me. Both returned negative.
I’m very grateful to Christian Science for these, and all the other healings I’ve had.
The members of the Christian Science community in Canberra share their experiences and thoughts on Christian Science:
For quite some weeks I had been having trouble walking. I could move around but my walking ‘style’ was more akin to a ’duck waddle’. My hips were causing me pain and my style of locomotion and gait had altered to try and accommodate and ameliorate the pain. For someone who is quite comfortable undertaking various sports, going to the gym and doing manual labour this wasn’t a very good state of affairs.
As a Christian Scientist I had turned to our textbook, Science and Health With Key to the Scripturesby Mary Baker Eddy, and to the Bible for support. I continued my search for any passages within those books to assist my spiritual growth and understanding and application of Christian Science to healing my problem. After about a fortnight of such study and still having a ‘duck waddle’ walk I was no better.
One of the hymns (565) in the Christian Science Hymnal has the words:
Cleanse the lepers, heal the sick. Cast out demons. Raise the dead. Truth is revealed in every place, Throughout all time, throughout all space
In searching through the Bible, I was acutely aware of the healing works of Jesus Christ, and indeed hymn 565 glorifies such healings. Try as I might I still couldn’t shake my problem. As an adherent to Christian Science I have been able to overcome a number of physical problems by turning to our texts for comfort and support. I know this method of healing works – but this time it was proving difficult. I was still undertaking work; I still had to move around; I still had things to do – but it was becoming physically taxing. Some days seemed rather long.
I asked my wife to pray with me on this situation. Together we have had many quick healings of physical problems. After a very brief discussion with her I started to ‘waddle’ down the hallway. I had not travelled more than three metres when all pain and difficulty with my problem disappeared. Once again I was amazed at how supremely effective and immediate Christian healing can be. It is not magic; it is not mind control; it is not drugs; it is not hypnosis – it is Christian healing.
Having some understanding of Christian Science and Christian healing with previous problems, I know I shouldn’t really have been amazed but still my expectations of relief being so immediate were more than met. I still continue to be ever so grateful for the power of Christian healing and its application in my life.
Mary Baker Eddy in Science and Health (p.138) states:
Jesus established in the Christian era the precedent for all Christianity, theology, and healing. Christians are under as direct orders now, as they were then, to be Christlike, to possess the Christ-spirit, to follow the Christ-example, and to heal the sick as well as the sinning. It is easier for Christianity to cast out sickness than sin, for the sick are more willing to part with pain than are sinners to give up the sinful, so-called pleasure of the senses. The Christian can prove this to-day as readily as it was proved centuries ago.
I had read and reread this passage, but I had been busy with material physical work and should have been busy with God’s work. It was this realisation that came to me afterwards. I had spent time searching through the texts but had not been giving the spiritual work the due deference and application it should have been accorded.
Although coming to Christian Science later in life, I am so very grateful for having found it.
The members of the Christian Science community in Canberra share their experiences and thoughts on Christian Science:
In our back yard in Canberra we have certain sections of the garden fenced off as a chicken run. One afternoon I was down in the bottom corner of the chicken’s area checking for eggs. On this day the chickens had been particularly industrious and had dug some quite deep holes and unearthed some old timbers that I had not known were there. As I stepped back from the hutch I felt a sharp pain in my left foot. I looked down to find that I had stepped on a piece of wood that had a very long, rusty nail sticking out of it. The nail had gone right through my plastic yard shoes and was now lodged deep in my foot. It had obviously been buried for some time and now the nail was not only rusty but muddy and yucky with chicken droppings. I pulled it out and went up to the house to wash it off.
As I walked back very fearful ideas started filling my thought. Not long before I had heard someone tell of symptoms of tetanus and I found myself worrying that I had never had a tetanus injection ever.
At first I thought: Why am I thinking these thoughts? I never think like this! I am not normally a fearful person. I’ve been a student of Christian Science all my life and it has taught me that what I think is very important. The quality of my thoughts determines my experience, so thinking fearfully was strange to me. Then it dawned on me – these were not really my thoughts! These thoughts came only as suggestions. I love that word suggestion; it means that I have the option of accepting or rejecting something. This was something that I would certainly reject. In that moment I felt no ownership of these thoughts. I knew that I didn’t have to analyse them, or wonder: Why did I think this? or delve into what fears might be lurking in my thinking for me to produce these thoughts. Because I felt no ownership of them I could simply discard them.
That was the end of the matter. I washed my foot but there was no pain and it immediately stopped bleeding. Later that day after my shower when I dried my foot, I couldn’t even find the place. There were never any repercussions from the incident.
The lesson I learned that day has stayed with me. Nowadays I am more alert to the implications of this word suggestion. God never suggests; only human reasoning suggests. God doesn’t give you options; He is just good and His word is final.
I am becoming more practised now at recognising suggestions and not owning all thoughts that come to me. I know I don’t need to analyse a suggestion; I don’t need to delve into it; I don’t need to feel guilty for thinking it. I just reject it with a very firm: That’s not my thought! When I say this, I know that it isn’t my thought because it isn’t of God. I know that God doesn’t give me fearful thoughts therefore fearful thoughts are not my thoughts. Learning this has so simplified my prayers. I use this line all the time now: That’s not my thought! And then I let it go. Only good, healthy, harmonious, progressive thoughts are mine because these stem directly from God’s goodness.
Stand porter at the door of thought. Admitting only such conclusions as you wish realized in bodily results, you will control yourself harmoniously. When the condition is present which you say induces disease, whether it be air, exercise, heredity, contagion, or accident, then perform your office as porter and shut out these unhealthy thoughts and fears. Exclude from mortal mind the offending errors; then the body cannot suffer from them.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p392:24-32)
Christian Science Canberra 