Christian Science Canberra   Promoting Health, Wellbeing and Spiritual Healing in a Scientific World

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)