Laurel Caswell - Reprinted from The Christian Science Journal, June 2007
I had always thought of myself as a pretty happy person. I think that’s how most other people saw me, too. And, as a lifelong Christian Scientist, I had trusted God to be my first and only Physician. That is, until I went to college. Soon after I began my studies, I couldn’t wake up in time to get to classes. I found no joy in most activities. I felt riddled with depression, anger, and anxiety. I found solace only by staying in my dorm room and even then felt extremely anxious. Sure that I would flunk out of school if I didn’t do something fast, I went to a psychologist. Although she was kind, gentle, and genuinely interested in my well-being, she had a grim diagnosis for me. She said I needed medication for severe depression. She said I would need to take it for the rest of my life, likening my condition to a life-threatening disease. This scared me even further. I felt beyond all hope.
Ashamed to call myself a Christian Scientist because I had not turned to God for healing, at times I felt like the honest thing to do would be to withdraw my membership from The Mother Church (which now I’m so glad I didn’t do). I prayed often but felt as though I’d betrayed God and my church. I felt totally alone and imprisoned by my situation. Thinking that my fellow branch church members wouldn’t want me, I stopped going to church. I studied the Bible and Science and Health alone in my room, clinging desperately to the truths I’d learned since childhood. But I still felt stuck–unloved by my church family (or so I thought!) and doomed to take medication for the rest of my life.
Then one day after a few years of struggling with this way of living, I asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray with me about an entirely different issue. I sincerely wanted to overcome resentment toward a family friend. The practitioner reminded me that I had been looking at and accepting a false view of this individual. I had accepted that she was nasty, hurtful, and just generally bad. I had been praying all wrong. I had not been praying to see this woman as God sees her, but only to heal my own hurt feelings.
So, even though every time I saw this woman she seemed to have a smirk on her face with my name on it and didn’t seem to want to be around me at all, I started to find small ways to see her in a better light. For instance, her clothes were always clean, so I appreciated her natural purity and tendency toward order and goodness. I thought deeply about one of my favorite references in Science and Health,
Love never loses sight of loveliness. Its halo rests upon its object. One marvels that a friend can ever seem less than beautiful (p. 248)
To help me understand that my prayers are effective, the practitioner directed me to this statement in Mary Baker Eddy’s Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896: “When a hungry heart petitions the divine Father-Mother God for bread, it is not given a stone,–but more grace, obedience, and love. If this heart, humble and trustful, faithfully asks divine Love to feed it with the bread of heaven, health, holiness, it will be conformed to a fitness to receive the answer to its desire…” (p. 127).
As I continued praying and striving to see this woman as God sees her, I realized that I, too, am a good, pure, gentle, and loved child of God. And I realized that I needed to start seeing myself in this way, too. At that point, I woke up to the fact that I was the only one separating myself from both God and my church. God loved me and always had. The Bible clearly tells us that nothing can separate us from the unconditional love of God (see Rom. 8:38–39).
When I returned to church, I discovered that my fellow church members had missed me and had always wanted me to attend. They had never actually rejected me. I am sure they had not lost sight of who I really am spiritually–the whole, perfect, and loved child of God.
Although the practitioner was not praying with me to heal the depression, one day I realized that I hadn’t taken my twice-daily medication in a couple of weeks! It had been so long since I’d touched the little prescription bottle that a thin layer of dust rested on the cap. And that was the end of both the medication and the depression. Several years have passed, and I remain free from them both.
One family member, who knew that I was supposed to be taking medication, was stunned when she found out I was no longer taking it. She said, “I thought you were taking more or a different medication! You’re so much more pleasant now that you’ve stopped taking it.”
And our family friend? She now confides in me as a friend, and we do all sorts of fun things together, like go to the movies–something which seemed totally impossible before I started praying to see her as God sees her.
I’m certainly glad my family and church never gave up on me. This healing is unshakeable proof to me that God never gives up on us. As God’s children, we are all right now dear lambs of God, sweetly sheltered by God’s all-embracing love. We can never really stray from Her healing presence.
Share This
Thank you for this article. I have had a similar experience and I’m glad the Mother Church is addressing this awful idea of one’s joy being subjected to brain activities.
Thank you for sharing this. I got some good ideas from it.
This is a really good article. Hot topic.
Thank you very much for this, and for your persistence over the years of your troubles both with depression and relationship frustration. I have only recently returned to reading Christian Science material and going to church after an 18-yr absence, which also included continuing deep depression and self-imposed isolation from others, so your steadfastness, willingness to reach out for help, and HEALINGS are very hope-giving to me. Blessings to you!
thank you for this article, it gave me a sense of courage and persistance. thank you!:)