Healed of longstanding skin growth

I have gained such spiritual insight and inspiration from reading Science and Health by Mary Baker Eddy. What I’ve learned about God and my relationship with Him from this book has been a constant source of peace and comfort. Last spring a particular passage helped spur on a healing.

Since my youth, I’d had a large mole on my back. Then one day last year I had the sudden and startling realization that I didn’t need to accept this condition without question. I recognized this inspiration as the working of the Christ—a divine message communicating the possibility of regeneration and healing.

I’ve learned, from my study of both Christian Science and the Bible, to mentally confront and reject discord—physical or otherwise—as an imposition on my health, rather than as part of my experience. The Apostle Paul admonishes, “Wherefore henceforth know we no man after the flesh,” and “Ye are not in the flesh, but in the Spirit” (II Cor. 5:16; Rom. 8:9). These concepts challenged me to look beyond physical conditions and perceive my true identity as spiritual.

It was then that an arresting question in Science and Health seemed to speak directly to me. “Is man,” asked Mrs. Eddy, “a material fungus without Mind to help him?” (Science and Health, p. 160). A mole, I reasoned, is a bit like a fungus, and this question challenged me to consider whether I viewed myself as just a repository for uncontrolled biological growth, or as a spiritual, Godlike idea able to have complete dominion over my body.

It was clear to me that spiritual dominion was the only possible answer. I was not a mindless being operating on my own but a son of God, or divine Mind; moreover, this divine partnership could never permit me to become a host to anything unspiritual and parasitic.

Over the summer, the growth began to irritate me, and my wife alerted me that it appeared to be growing larger. Then while I was driving home from taking my daughter back to college over a long weekend, the mole would occasionally bleed profusely. But near the end of the trip, the mole began to break up, which suggested to me that it was dissolving or lifting off.

By the time I got home, the mole had nearly disappeared. I recalled this statement: “A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive” (Science and Health, p. 463). The mole was certainly offensive, unwelcome, and unpleasant. I’m convinced that the truths I was learning about myself as God’s idea were a catalyst for this physical change. Within a few weeks, there was absolutely no trace of it, and there is now perfectly smooth skin where the mole had been. This took place in August 2007.

I’m rejoicing over the spiritual lessons I’ve learned and look forward with confidence to further proofs of spiritual growth and progress.

Kurt Hochstein | Bethesda, Maryland, US