Hearing restored

In the summer of 2006 I realized I was unable to hear out of one of my ears. At first I didn’t pay much attention to it, because it didn’t affect me much. However, when I discovered I couldn’t hear my alarm clock if my hearing ear was against the pillow, I knew it was time to pray about the situation. Praying about physical problems was natural to me because I have successfully relied on the teachings of Christian Science for years.

So I asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray with me. What really stood out to me from our conversation was the practitioner’s statement that there really is no matter. Her conviction came from “the scientific statement of being” in Science and Health, where Mary Baker Eddy wrote that “there is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter.” It goes on to say, “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all” (Science and Health, p. 468). The practitioner was reminding me that as God’s child, I was spiritual, not material. Knowing that she was praying with me to recognize this fact comforted me and gave me confidence.

But the next day, in addition to the hearing loss, I began to feel a kind of fullness on the right side of my face. The day after that, my face felt completely numb. I reported this to the practitioner, and together we kept praying with the fact that since God truly filled all space, there couldn’t be even an inch of space for matter or materiality to occupy—to feel or not feel, to hear or not hear. Without the influence of the carnal mind (as St. Paul referred to evil; see Rom 8:7), matter cannot feel anything.

I felt calm and confident relying on Christian Science treatment, and thought about the many healings our family had experienced, including freedom from swollen glands, symptoms of mumps, and ear infections.

The numbness lessened right away, and I started to hear again, although my hearing seemed to come and go for about a day.

Then a breakthrough came when I prayed again with “the scientific statement of being.” I suddenly made the connection between “Mind [God] and its infinite manifestation.” I saw clearly that I was that “infinite manifestation”—the forever result of God’s perfection. With that realization, my hearing returned, permanently. That was over a year ago.

Now I can even hear conversations from a distance. A week or two after my hearing returned to normal, a large piece of wax fell from my ear. The fact that my hearing was good before this took place confirmed to me that hearing never had come from my physical or “material” ears, but from God. This healing helped me better understand the description of ears in Science and Health as representing, “Not organs of the so-called corporeal senses, but spiritual understanding” (p. 585).

Katherine A. Kolka | Los Angeles, California, US