As I was considering my public healing practice, I realized that a confidence in what I was doing--really in God's control of what goes on--was something I needed to give some thought to. And a cute little incident in the grocery store yielded a helpful insight.
It was almost the Fourth of July, and I needed (or thought I needed) a container to use to take some food over to my parents' house for their annual celebration. As I was taking in all the options available, I heard a voice behind me ask, "Are those BPA free?" The most loving thing to do seemed to be to look at the packaging and find an answer for my fellow shopper, although it hadn't been anything I'd been considering. So I turned and told the lady who asked that, in fact, the container I was looking at was BPA free. Then she gruffly muttered something to the effect of, "I feel like you get cancer just walking into a store."
Now, that thought disarmed me. It needed correcting. So while I turned back to face the plastic containers, in my mind I was scrambling for some helpful truth to share, something to lift thought above a sense of matter and material law to divine Spirit, God, and the spiritual facts of the universe. That was my job as a Christian healer, right?
As it turned out, this lady, with her cart stuffed to the brim in apparently haphazard fashion (her egg carton was at an impossible angle up against the cart's side), also thought more needed to be said. She gave me instructions to buy that sort of item at Wal-Mart because it was cheaper, but that she lived nearby, so that's why it would make sense for her to buy those at the grocery store, but not me. (Obviously, she didn't know that I lived right near the grocery store, too.) I thanked her for the advice, since I know she was just trying to be helpful, and quickly ducked into another aisle...without a plastic container.
As the day went on, I kept thinking about the incident, and realized I needed to deal with it, not just roll it over and over in my mind. Finally, as I was driving somewhere, I just asked God, "Okay, so what can I learn from this?" And like lightning, an answer came:
"You're not fixing people or things; you're always just correcting your own thought."
Right away, I was grateful for that instant response--almost like God had been doing the Jeopardy song the whole time waiting for me to be ready and ask! And then I thought about what it meant.
First, it meant that there was nothing wrong with the lady in the grocery store, despite some judgments I had made about her. I didn't need to set her straight, so to speak, because God had already made her perfect like Him. (See Genesis 1:26, 31). My job is just to see that, not to make it so.
Second, it meant that no matter what "problem" I came into contact with, the only place I was dealing with it, was in my thought. I could know and understand truths about God and His creation, and that would always correct the false picture the material senses were advocating. Kind of like understanding that the earth is spherical would prevent a sailor from believing he was about to sail off the edge of the world.
Third, it meant that every problem was healable! Because I've turned to God countless times for the right thought or feeling to correct a wrong one...and every time God has supplied that thought or idea! My thought has been uplifted like this so many times, and so reliably, that I just knew that I would be able to heal when asked to.
Because that's really what Christian Science healing is--it's understanding the truth, which naturally displaces the lie, and then enables us to see the harmony that's been there all along. Just like with the sailor.
Finally, this incident helped me see something of the nature of error, or mistakes about God's creation. One way to look at them is as temptation, a temptation to believe in something God didn't make. Just like the serpent in Genesis, these temptations look for their way in, then try to do some damage parading as our own thought if we let them in. And that was how the conversation with the lady in the grocery store went. Once I engaged with her, she had a LOT to say--and absolutely zero inhibition about saying it!
I could've stuck around to listen, but thankfully, I "agreed with my adversary quickly" (see Matthew 5:25) and scooted on out of her way, symbolizing my choice not to entertain thoughts I knew weren't true. Because, like the lady not knowing that I lived close to the grocery store, error just doesn't make any sense either. Of course, because I had engaged just that little bit, there was a mistaken thought to correct. It was corrected as I realized what my responsibility is in healing, not to fix anything or anyone, but to be quiet and listen--because God is already sending every thought I need.
So that was the healing here: a wrong sense of my job as a healer being corrected by the true sense. Entirely in thought. Immediately effective. Amen! :-)
"But He is in one mind, and who can turn Him? and what His soul desireth, even that He doeth. For He performeth the thing that is appointed for me: and many such things are with Him." Job 23:13,14
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