Weight loss with joy

Since childhood, when I attended a Christian Science Sunday School, I’ve found that prayer in Christian Science is indispensable to healing.

Six years ago I decided to pray about my desire to lose weight. My focus was to accept my spiritual perfection, rather than to try to attain physical perfection. I wanted to glorify God and grow spiritually—to see that divine law reveals our oneness with God (our actual being) and awakens us to the joy that is purely spiritual and innocent. This joy, I knew, had nothing to do with a material form.

I reasoned that acknowledging the allness of Spirit, God, denies the evidence and existence of matter, which effectively destroys the belief in material laws about eating and diet. In my motivation to glorify God’s allness I found that I was not preoccupied with thoughts of eating to live or living to eat (see Science and Health, p. 388). My focus became less matter-based, and I realized that, contrary to what dietary and nutritional systems claim, I was not what I ate. As I prayed along those lines, I felt the peace and tenderness of the divine presence.

Soon my inclination to routinely snack in the late evening, or to compensate for a tough day by snacking, left me. I also found that I didn’t need to constantly think about material nutritional requirements, since I knew my energy and substance were the reflection of Spirit, and not the result of my eating particular foods. I trusted Spirit to “fashion me anew”—both in habit and body (see Science and Health, p. 4).

As I controlled my thinking and my habits in this way, the fear that I might not be alert in my prayers or constant in my eating discipline dissipated. I found it helpful, in considering both my body and appetite, to appreciate that divine intelligence operates universally in consciousness, governing me and everyone. I also rejected the common thought that extra weight or excessive eating is associated with age or genetic predisposition. These claims were unreal because they had no spiritual substance or Truth-power.

The joy in God that I was feeling helped me continue my prayers without feeling deprived of food, and with the realization that gluttony didn’t bring me joy or express God’s goodness. Jesus said, “Blessed are they which do hunger and thirst after righteousness: for they shall be filled” (Matt. 5:6). I’d catch myself walking to the refrigerator and remember to hunger and thirst rightly. This sweet sense of divine control was very freeing. I found I was able to eat as God’s love inspired me. Interestingly, with that inspiration I found, too, that I was always smiling because of my growing confidence in His love.

As I continued to study Science and Health daily, I awakened to my innocence as God’s expression and no longer feared excess either in my eating or physical size. And my understanding and prayer progressed. Before long, I needed a smaller belt and lost the unnecessary weight.

Today, I continue to eat normally. I especially love the natural way I’ve found to my freedom by glorifying God with the pure joy of knowing my spiritual nature. My success has been permanent and continues to deepen my spiritual growth.

Charles Ridgway Johnson | Wilmette, Illinois, US