Pour la gloire de Dieu

Marie Taillefer | from The Christian Science Journal

The universal laws of God allow us to live our lives for the glory of God, as Jesus did.

There is an old Chinese proverb, “Open a book and it will open you.” And that, I must say, is exactly what happened to me.

When I was in my 20s, I was eating lunch with my colleagues at work, and while they all sat around eating a normal lunch, one of them questioned me about the severity of—and my obsession with—my diet. For over two years I had suffered with a debilitating digestive disorder, and after various medical regimens brought no improvement, including an alternative approach that had me drinking clay diluted with water, I became a vegetarian, hoping for any relief whatsoever.

I had an already established identity—as God’s perfect child.

That colleague was a Christian Scientist, and he took me aside to speak to me briefly about the Bible and the healing power of prayer. He told me that I had an already established identity—as God’s perfect child. Already established? God’s perfect child? Having grown up in a religion that led me to believe that my spiritual purpose was to somehow work myself back to completeness, this was news to me. My ideas about my relationship to God were based on the “facts” of Genesis 2 and 3 in the Bible—that God created us from dust and that because of Eve’s susceptibility to the serpent’s wiles, she set the whole of humanity on a course of permanent guilt and suffering. Every one of us, I had believed, was now “fallen” and needed to work our way back to perfection.

At the end of the lunch my friend gave me the phone number of a Christian Science practitioner whom I could call to pray for me. Much to my surprise, I called and went to see him. I’m not sure why I was so receptive—so quickly—to this new idea of myself, but I woke up almost immediately to the prospect that God had created me, and that everything He made was good.

The practitioner drew my attention to two passages in Matthew: “Take no thought for your life, what ye shall eat, or what ye shall drink” (Matt. 6:25) and “Not that which goeth into the mouth defileth a man; but that which cometh out of the mouth, this defileth a man” (Matt. 15:11). These simple truths gave me tremendous hope that God was guiding me to the realization of my already established identity. The practitioner gave me Christian Science treatment—prayed specifically for me concerning my digestive trouble—and I purchased a copy of Science and Health. I buried myself in the universal truths I was learning and gave up all other treatments and dietary requirements. Within a few days I was back at the lunch table with my colleagues, eating the tantalizing treats that my region is known for! I was completely healed.

Nothing at any time had ever destroyed the purity of my being in God’s image.

I was coming to know that nothing at any time had ever destroyed the purity of my being in God’s image. This was my true identity, its basis found in Genesis 1, in which God creates man and woman in the image of divine Spirit. And it wasn’t just true for me but for all humanity. As I read Science and Health, statements such as “Like our Master, we must depart from material sense into the spiritual sense of being” (Science and Health, p. 41) turned my previous beliefs upside down. Passages from the Bible came alive for me, like “Eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man, the things which God hath prepared for them that love him. But God hath revealed them unto us by his Spirit” (I Cor. 2:9–10).

All through my life, whenever a challenge arose, I had always asked myself, “What have I done to deserve such a thing?” “Why is this happening?” Once I began reading the Bible, I realized that everyone who came to Jesus for healing was, in their own way, asking the same thing. Faced by a man who had been blind since birth, Jesus’ disciples asked him, “Master, who did sin, this man, or his parents, that he was born blind?” Jesus replied, “Neither hath this man sinned, nor his parents: but that the works of God should be made manifest in him” (John 9:2–3). And healing came. When his friend Lazarus was sick, Jesus lovingly rejected the mournful news that came from Lazarus’s sisters, instead saying, “This sickness is not unto death, but for the glory of God, that the Son of God might be glorified thereby” (John 11:4). Again, healing came.

Throughout his life on earth, Jesus never exhibited fear but a sure, steady conviction based on knowing his own—and everyone else’s—complete inseparability from God. There’s no evidence that he ever thought, “Well, in this particular case, which seems pretty severe, I’ll need to pray more than ever.” Nor did he ever have any doubt that the truth he was knowing was already manifest as the glory of God. I’ve accepted his example as a demand for total acceptance that the good of God, of the divine Mind, is always present and active, despite appearances.

Life in God was, for Jesus, an obvious spiritual fact, and he lived everything he said.

And the appearances are many. It sometimes seems like we’re immersed in a world torn between good and evil, assaulted on all sides by the changing nature of events. And even when events appear to be “good,” we often have a secret fear that evil is lurking in some corner—and will reveal itself shortly. On this matter, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “A knowledge of evil was never the essence of divinity or manhood. In the first chapter of Genesis, evil has no habitation nor name. Creation is there represented as spiritual, entire, and good” (Science and Health, p. 537). I feel that Jesus knew this to be true, and his mission was not only to heal but to awaken the human family from the misconception that life is in matter. Life in God was, for him, an obvious spiritual fact, and he lived everything he said.

Fourteen years after that memorable lunch with my colleague, I went into the full-time practice of Christian Science healing. Over time, I had begun taking patients, and one day a mother called asking for prayerful support for her small child. She was a former colleague who had come to a lecture at our branch church and had purchased Science and Health afterward. On the phone she said her daughter had been taken to the hospital in a coma and that the doctors had no clue as to her condition. She was in intensive care but taking no medication, and so I gave Christian Science treatment. Within a few hours, the little girl woke up. The hospital wanted to keep her to determine a diagnosis, but the father, seeing his daughter in a normal, joyous condition, decided to take her home, assuring the doctors that they would return if there were any difficulties. The child was well and has remained so.

In that case, I had to get rid of all fears about sickness and death—for myself and for the young parents. It’s a stand I have endeavored to take since that day when I first opened Science and Health, the book that was to “open” me forever.

The universal laws of God, of good itself, allow us to experience every circumstance from the starting point of Genesis 1. That’s how we can joyfully prove that we’re living our lives, as Jesus said, “for the glory of God.”

Marie Taillefer practices Christian Science healing in Pau, France.