Child’s heart condition healed

Many years ago, I was a foster mother caring for children from a local children’s home. One day, the agency phoned and asked if I would consider caring for a three-month-old baby boy who’d been diagnosed with a very serious heart condition. The doctors did not expect him to survive.

My husband and I agreed to take the child in. When they brought him into our home, he was listless and unaware of his surroundings. It was very difficult to get him to eat food, and he did not progress normally.

I knew about Christian Science. I’d attended a Christian Science Sunday School as a child, and after marrying I had started to attend a Christian Science church. Through prayer, as taught in Christian Science, I’d had healings with other foster children in my care, and so I was expecting healing with this child also. I kept praying with the truth of God’s perfection and the consequent wholeness of His child, or idea. Every time I looked at him, I knew this child was God’s unblemished expression. Each Sunday I took him to the nursery in a nearby Christian Science church, where he received much loving care.

My sister was a devout Christian Scientist and was a great support to me with her prayers and love. I also periodically asked a Christian Science practitioner to help pray for the child. With the help of the practitioner, we kept focusing on the idea that as God’s creation, this boy was complete and whole.

At the same time, my husband and I had requested that we’d like to adopt this child. The agency advised that would not be possible, since at that time children had to be in perfect health to be adopted.

In the meantime, caseworkers would visit to evaluate his condition. On one occasion there were five social workers evaluating him. One would say this was wrong; the other would say something else was wrong with him. Finally I suggested to them that when I noticed a change in this child, I’d give them a call, to which they readily agreed. The child did not see a doctor, nor did he take any medication while he was in my care.

I felt that I grew a great deal as I studied Christian Science more faithfully. I endeavored to gain a scientific sense of health, following this advice on page 373 from Science and Health: “Establish the scientific sense of health, and you relieve the oppressed organ. The inflammation, decomposition, or deposit will abate, and the disabled organ will resume its healthy functions.”

Finally, after many months passed (as best I can describe this), as a flower opens its petals in blossom, this child started to blossom. His health improved greatly. He became a normally acting, beautiful little boy. By the time he was 18 months old, he was healed of his heart condition. I phoned the agency and told them of his improvement and that I would bring him in for evaluation. When we arrived, the doctor assigned to the case could hardly believe how he’d progressed, since they had not expected him to survive. He called in all his staff to witness this miracle and confirmed that the child was healed.

Needless to say, we were able to adopt this child. He has been a great blessing and joy to our family. And what a blessing Christian Science has been to us!

Mary Jane Lee | Dayton, Ohio, US

I’m the child my mother has written about. I’m 52 years old and in very good health. As a requirement for my work, I must undergo yearly physical examinations, and I’ve been informed that I have an “athletic heart.” I have no doubt that I would not be here to write this had it not been for Christian Science and one very loving mother who “knew the truth.”

Jeffrey A. Lee