Overcoming Conflict a Sentinel Watch interview with Judith Hardy Olson
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Click here to listen.
Can our prayers make a tangible difference when it comes to overcoming conflict? Judith shares her experiences with praying about conflict and explains how our prayers can contribute to healing on the world stage.
A member of the Christian Science community in Canberra offered this proof of the healing power of prayer.
In 2017 a sore appeared on my forehead and would not heal. Sometimes it was soft and moist and other times hard and scaly.
I became concerned because of all the discussion in the media and more generally about skin cancer.
I’ve had many healings by praying as I’ve been taught in Christian Science and wanted to rely on prayer for healing in this case.
In the Christian Science textbook Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, she writes on page 476 When speaking of God’s children, not the children of men, Jesus said, “The kingdom of God is within you;” that is, Truth and Love reign in the real man, showing that man in God’s image is unfallen and eternal. 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. Thus Jesus taught that the kingdom of God is intact, universal, and that man is pure and holy.
I prayed to get a better understanding of this perfect man and his purity and holiness. However, the idea kept coming to me that I also needed to read Science and Health from cover to cover, as many people have been healed by doing this. I kept praying, but delaying reading Science and Health and the sore did not heal.
During a 2023 holiday in South Africa, I decided that I needed to have this sore seen to. So, when I returned to Canberra I went to see a doctor. The doctor said it was a skin cancer and needed to be cut out, and because of the position on my forehead I would need plastic surgery. I decided that I did not want to go down this path but wanted a healing through prayer, so I began to read Science and Health, and sometime in early 2024 the sore disappeared.
I’m very grateful for this healing and to Mary Baker Eddy for Science and Health and this wonderful healing religion – Christian Science.
A Sentinel Watch interview with Mark Swinney
Click here to listen.
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Mark has good news: There is no hopeless case! Mark shares what he’s learned—and experienced—that proves that God’s love truly can bring hope and healing to apparently hopeless situations.
Wednesday Testimony Meeting readings from the Bible and Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy.
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Come, O fount of every vision, / Lift our eyes to what will come. / See the lion and the young lamb / Dwell together in Your home. / Hear the cries of war fall silent, / Feel our love glow like the sun, / When we all serve one another, / Then our heaven is begun.
(Hymn 460 v2 – Christian Science Hymnal)
In times of conflict and division these words from Love: the Best Response of All by Barsom Kashish published in the Christian Science Sentinel (May 19, 1986 issue) are a guide for our prayers and actions.
From the life of our Master, Christ Jesus, and from all Christian experience, we know that truly effective love has its source and gathers its power from divine Love—the Love that knows no opposite because it is the Love that is God. Living this Love in the face of obvious injustice isn’t easy. It requires wisdom, discernment, and even spiritual “toughness” at times. But the willingness to persist in loving brings into human experience a transforming factor that simply can’t be assimilated in the world’s terms.
The article quotes Mary Baker Eddy as saying: Each day I pray: God bless my enemies; make them Thy friends; give them to know the joy and the peace of love. (Miscellany 220: 21)
Fulful ye my joy, that ye be likeminded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. Let nothing be done through strife or vainglory; but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves. (The Bible – Philippians 2: 2,3)
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Fear thou not; for I am with thee: be not dismayed; for I am thy God: I will strengthen thee; yea, I will help thee; yea, I will uphold thee with the right hand of my righteousness.
(The Bible KJV – Isaiah 41: 10)
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Hold thought steadfastly to the enduring, the good, and the true, and you will bring these into your experience proportionably to their occupancy of your thoughts.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p261:4)
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Working and praying with true motives your Father will open the way.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p326:20-21)
Whether you call it prayer or not, probably all of us at some time withdraw to that quiet place within to look for answers to life’s challenges. For me this is prayer.
When you go to that quiet place do you find answers? I’ve been thinking a lot about why sometimes I do get answers, and other times not. What I have noticed is that when I am willing to be humble and to put personal wishes and desires aside, I am more receptive to new ideas. This makes sense to me.
What I have also noticed is that when I lift my thought above the problem to a higher, larger, more spiritual perspective then solutions are found.
I have an analogy that helps me to lift my thought in times of trouble. It goes like this.
A man is canoeing on the ocean not far from the beach. It is a beautiful day and he ventures out further. Without warning a dense fog rolls in and he can hardly see to the end of his canoe. Soon he loses his orientation to the beach. He becomes fearful and wonders, is he heading to the beach and safety, or to the rocks or even to the open ocean? He can’t tell. He sits still and prays. Quickly the thought comes to him to stand up. It’s too dangerous to stand up in this little canoe he reasons, so he prays again. Again he gets the message to stand up. Three times he asks and three times he has this strong feeling that he should stand up. Eventually he obeys. As he stands up he realises that it is only a low-lying band of fog that is not much above his head when he is sitting down. Now standing up he is in the full sunshine; the beach is clearly in view. He sits down, spins the canoe around and heads safely to the beach. The fear is gone because he has a clear direction.
For me the fog represents the details of the human situation that is challenging me. The sunshine represents the spiritual ideas that are always available to give us a sense of direction. Nowadays I ask myself: Are you examining the fog? Am I going over the details of the situation that seems troubling?
Answers are not to be found by lamenting the fog. Answers come when we are aware of the good that already exists and celebrate this. This encourages the state of mind that is receptive. Sometimes there are solutions that we never expected.
This article was contributed by a member of the Christian Science community in Canberra.
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The devotion of thought to an honest achievement makes the achievement possible.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p199: 21-22)
Right motives give pinions to thought, and strength and freedom to speech and action.
(Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy p454: 19-21)
Christian Science Canberra 