[Warren’s testimony examples of divine Guidance and of knowing that “with God all things are possible” – even to “know the past, the present and the future” … when, at the end of its rope, "the human mind… yields to the divine Mind." (SH 180:25-27; 84:11, cit. S16; 85:5-6, cit. S17)
[Warren Huff:] These citations from Science and Health in Section 4 of this week’s Bible lesson, along with the Bible stories about what Elisha said and did in II Kings 6:8-17, and what Jesus discerned about the Samaritan woman at the well [John 4:7-29)] and in the thoughts of the scribes and Pharisees [Luke 6:8] remind me of two, all-glory-to-God, back-to-back demonstrations of these truths when they appeared in a Christian Science Bible Lesson to enable two seemingly impossible healings during finals week of my Freshman year at Princeton University.
You can demonstrate the all-knowing, divine Mind, like Joseph did in a recent Bible Lesson when he interpreted Pharaoh’s dream (Gen. 42:1-57). Like his thought, your thought can be “in rapport with this Mind, to know the past, the present, and the future… to commune more largely with the divine Mind… to be divinely inspired, yea, to reach the range of fetterless Mind.” (citation S16, 84:11-18)
The story of Joseph interpreting Pharaoh’s dream and that line from Science and Health in this week’s Bible lesson, will always remind me a precious time when they appeared in a Christian Science Bible Lesson as an answer to prayer for me during physical and academic testing times for me at the end of my Freshman year at Princeton University.
Somehow all 15 hours of my five 3-hour finals were scheduled only a lunch-break or dinner-break apart for the first two days of exam week. On top of that, due to daily football practice and working several jobs, I had already fallen behind on heavy reading assignments in a couple of the courses. So, on the Saturday morning before these finals, I felt pressured and inadequate, “How am I ever going to be ready to humanly read, study and prepare for these exams with no real study time between them?”
Just as I started to ponder my seemingly impossible situation, a dull pain in my right side that I’d been aware of overnight suddenly became very sharp and did not go away. A roommate, whose dad was a doctor, suggested that it looked like my appendix had burst and that I was having an appendicitis attack. I chose to handle this suggestion with prayer, just as I’d had done successfully to meet many other challenges — from making hard decisions to experiencing very quick healings of broken bones, severe wounds, sprained ankles, torn cartilage… When this very aggressive problem refused to yield quickly to my own prayers, I struggled to get to the privacy of a pay phone booth on campus … (this was B.C.— Before Cell phones) to call for prayerful support from a distance—like that which Jesus provide in citation 20 (Matthew 8:5-13, GEM#8). I was seeking the uniquely powerful, prayerful support known as a Christian Science treatment which is given with professional warmth and principled love by wonderful Christian Science practitioners (who are normally readily available worldwide as you can see in this online, listing of Christian Science Journal listed practitioners that was not available during my college years).
When none of the practitioners I knew from camp and from church answered their phones, and no human help seemed to be readily available, I hobbled my way – still doubled over in pain— to a nearby Christian Science Reading Room on Nassau Street. Its “quiet precincts” were a perfect place to reach out directly to God for angel messages and my healing.
For several spiritually supported hours that Saturday I was the only visitor to the private study area in the back of the Reading Room. That sacred secrecy enabled me to feel free enough to stretch out on the floor whenever sitting wasn’t comfortable… Whenever I physically struggled, I spiritually snuggled up to apply passages that the Comforter was indelibly teaching me from that week’s Christian Science Bible lesson. I kept coming back to an uplifting assurance in a sentence near the end of page 57 in Science and Health. This promise reads: “… Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for heaven.” I saw clearly that as long as my heart was sighing (moaning, groaning, complaining…) over the world—over exam-based concerns, time-based pressures and body-based pains… or over today’s worldwide virus and economy concerns — it could not begin “to unfold its wings for heaven” and healing.
Part of my beginning to unfold the wings of my heart for heaven was cherishing other profoundly significant truths about the infinite possibilities of being at one with all-knowing, divine Mind. Included in the lesson was the account of Joseph’s divine intuition that enabled him to know and share the humanly unknowable dream of Pharaoh (Genesis 41:1-57, cit. B16). I reasoned that this was mine too and that God would give me the healing, angel insights I needed to cherish as well as what I needed to study and what to write on my upcoming exams. I loved that Joseph shared how the way to humbly do this by telling Pharaoh, “it is not in me: God shall give … an answer of peace.” (Genesis 41:16).
I also distinctly remember feeling great relief in affirming for myself the truth that, “When man is governed by God, the ever-present Mind who understands all things, man knows that with God all things are possible.” (SH 180:25) More lessons from the Comforter that I cherished during my Reading Room study came back to bless me big-time after I got my healing and was taking my finals.
That private Reading Room study area also gave me a perfect place to feel free enough to seek and find the Comforter’s comfort by wholeheartedly singing some favorite hymns. I knew by heart all of Mary Baker Eddy’s hymns from years of singing them in Sunday School, plus scores of others from CedarS Hymn Sings every Sunday night. [You can see why I cherish CedarS Hymn Sings so much and especially the current series with enriching background on Mary Baker Eddy’s hymns as provided by Longyear Museum representatives!] This unconventional way to study for my exams, by being forced to put first my one-ness with God by cherishing each word of every hymn that came to me, turned out to the best possible exam prep that I’ve ever had.
I’ll always remember that, as spiritual sense gave me more and more peace, I closed my healing, Reading Room hymn sing by cherishing each word of “Christ My Refuge” and poem and hymn (254-258) by Mary Baker Eddy. My tears of pain changed to tears of joy! The pain lifted as I let my heart sing the following laws, “O’er waiting harps strings of the mind, there sweeps a strain, Low, sad, and sweet, whose measures bind The power of pain… And wake a white-winged angel throng of thoughts illumed By faith, and breathed in raptured song, With love perfumed. Then His unveiled, sweet mercies show Life’s burden’s light. I kiss the cross, and wake to know A world more bright… I see Christ walk and come to me and tenderly divinely talk. Thus Truth engrounds me on the rock (Matt. 7:24-29) … whereto God leadeth me. (Christian Science Hymnal #254)
With renewed freedom, I was inspired to RUN back to my Dodd Hall dorm room, to eat normally and prepare with peaceful inspiration Saturday night and Sunday for my first four final exams (12-hours worth) on Monday and Tuesday morning. I felt divinely inspired to review just what I needed to know and felt great and full of gratitude to God about my first four exams.
However, when I turned over the fifth exam on Tuesday afternoon, my heart dropped as I read all the exam questions which asked me to compare and contrast several books that I had intended to read over the weekend but did not because of the healing time I needed to spend in the Reading Room. I was seriously tempted at first to just go up to the exam proctor and turn in the exam with a note that I’d had a health challenge and was unable to adequately prepare for the exam and to ask to take the course on a Pass-Fail basis so that my good work going into the final could at least get me a "Pass" on my transcript for this sociology course.
Then, I remembered the citations from the Christian Science Bible lesson that I’d mined in the Reading Room as cherished gems to apply to myself. This included the account of Joseph humbly knowing it was not in him, but in God to give the right answer. (Genesis 41:1-57)
As I stood up with the intention to walk up and humanly give up, rather than try to write about books that I hadn’t even read, an angel message stopped me saying “I am the same Mind that made this test and that wrote every book and I am with you to take this test and tell you everything you need to know.”
I gained confidence from this angel message and from remembering other ideas from the Bible lesson I’d cherished and made my own during my healing time of study in the Reading Room.
They included these passages from Science and Health:
“It is the prerogative of the ever-present, divine Mind, and of thought in rapport with this Mind, to know the past, the present, and the future. Acquaintance with the Science of being enables us to commune more largely with the divine Mind… to be divinely inspired, yea, to reach the range of fetterless Mind.” (84:11-18, cit. S16)
“A knowledge of the Science of being develops the latent abilities and possibilities of man. It extends the atmosphere of thought, giving mortals access to broader and higher realms. It raises the thinker into his native air of insight and perspicacity.” (128:14)
“Spirit imparts the understanding uplifts consciousness and leads… This understanding is not intellectual, is not the result of scholarly attainments, it is the reality of all things brought to light.” (505:16, 26-28)
I sat back down with a joyous, confident motive to glorify God by being a clear transparency, a scribe under orders. I was determined not to try to make up myself what I humanly didn’t know, but to merely make it welcome. Ideas flowed and I effortlessly wrote them down. At the end of the three hours I handed in the exam with a sense of inspired joy; and, the next day I found out that my grade in the course actually improved! All glory to God alone!!
What cannot good do for you too when you, like Joseph, know that “it is not in me. God shall give (me every) … answer” that I need, and I know it! Mary Baker Eddy assures us that “Impossibilities never occur.” (245:27), so accept such a demonstration as a very real possibility for you every time you have no clue humanly how to answer any question or problem!
All we ever need do is be “Looking unto (Christ) Jesus the author and finisher”! (Heb. 12:2)
[A rough draft of this testimony is in the works to send to the Christian Science periodicals]
