Diagnosed brain tumor healed

After serving in the United States Army for three years, in April 2004 my husband was deployed to Haiti on a humanitarian mission.

Although I wasn’t aware of it at the time, about a month after he’d left, I began to harbor resentment about a lot of things. I was angry that the Army had sent my husband thousands of miles away. I even resented that my husband had thought that it was a good idea to join the Army in the first place. On top of this, occasional everyday incidents started to annoy me. For example, on my way to pick up my daughter at school, I would get angry at other drivers who weren’t paying full attention to their driving. This was one of many disturbances in my day.

Soon I started getting severe headaches and had difficulty taking care of our home. A good friend offered to come during the day to help me with our young son, and I was grateful for her help. But finally I realized that I needed to make a decision—either to have Christian Science treatment, or go to a doctor. I was brought up in Christian Science and had had many wonderful healings as a child and young adult through prayer. My friend, though, was pretty persuasive in urging me to have the situation checked out medically to see what the problem might be.

Reluctantly, I made an appointment with a doctor. The tests he ran showed a tumor at the base of my brain. He then told me to return two days later to discuss the treatment that would be available to me.

Later that evening, I called my mother, who is a Christian Science practitioner, and poured out the series of events that had occurred that day. One of the things I remember her saying to me, in a firm tone I wasn’t accustomed to from my mother, was simply that I had a lot of studying and praying to do.

As I hung up the phone, I found myself resenting that my mother hadn’t sounded as supportive as I’d expected, but I had no doubt that she was going to pray for me.

I then went upstairs to tuck my daughter into bed. She asked me what was wrong, and when I told her I had a headache, she very matter-of-factly said, “There is no spot where God is not.” Right at that moment, I realized that my six-year-old was praying, and I wasn’t.

So I went to my room and decided that it was really time to take a stand and to start by facing all the angry thoughts I’d been regularly indulging, and replace them with the spiritual truths I’d learned in Sunday School and in my study of Christian Science.

The first idea that came to me was that I needed to be grateful for the blessings that had come to our family since my husband joined the Army—for the many wonderful people we’d met, the places we’d lived in that had been so perfect for us, all that we were gaining and learning.

Now firmly on my way in prayer, I turned to some notes and references I’d saved through the years, and found a letter that Mary Baker Eddy had written to James Neal, an early Christian Science worker, published in one of her biographies. She stated: “Pray daily, never miss praying, no matter how often: ‘Lead me not into temptation’, —scientifically rendered,—Leave me not to lose sight of strict purity, clean pure thoughts; let all my thoughts and aims be high, unselfish, charitable, meek,—spiritually minded. With this altitude of thought your mind is losing materiality and gaining spirituality and this is the state of mind that heals the sick” (Mary Baker Eddy: Christian Healer, p. 171).

I realized I’d done none of that. I had not been praying daily, I was not having pure thoughts, I was not aiming to be “high, unselfish, charitable, meek.” And right then, my perspective changed. I was suddenly open and receptive to a more spiritual outlook.

The phone rang, and it was my husband, calling from Haiti. I told him everything that had happened that day. And then I said that I just really wanted to go home. He replied, “I thought I called you at home.” But what I meant was that I’d realized I hadn’t been seeing our family as being “at home” in God’s love and care, guided by His infinite wisdom, provided for in every way by His grace. As we continued to talk, for the first time I saw the spiritual purpose underlying what had worked out for us. I could see beauty in so many aspects of our lives. I felt surrounded by good from God. My husband was also very supportive, and I knew he was praying for me as well.

I continued my prayers through the night. The next day, I experienced a fresh sense of relief. All the abnormal symptoms had vanished—the fear, the anger, the persistent headache—and I felt as if I was functioning normally again.

The next day, I returned to the doctor’s office—but not for the treatment. Another set of tests was performed, and this time, there was no tumor or any evidence of it having ever been there.

I’m so grateful for this healing, which has remained permanent. I also became more patient and forgiving. Above all, I took away from this experience the importance of praying daily, and staying open to pure and loving thoughts from God.

Joy Stutler-Grant | Edmond, Oklahoma, US