Michelle Boccanfuso Nanouche, CSB Christian Science Practitioner & Teacher
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10/26/2011

How much longer will this healing take?

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A blog reader asked why some healings through prayer take longer than others. I will respond from the heart and from my own experience, which is the only way I can see to answer such a sensitive, and often angst-filled, question. A few months back someone asked if I thought healing through prayer is going on as readily and rapidly as it did in Christ Jesus' day or even a hundred years ago. This prompted me to list for myself, on paper, every major healing I have had. In the end I had quite a number - from walking pneumonia to broken bones to a growth in one breast. In all, there were 53 major healing events listed. I left off the small stuff - the bouts of flu, or colds, or family arguments - that evaporated quickly after prayer. Although I suppose a healing of a bad cold in five minutes, for example, could rank as a fairly influential healing...

Reflecting on these experiences, I realize there are two ways one could tell their life-story. One is the history of the catastrophes encountered, large and small, and how they have been overcome. The other involves by tracing the thread of spiritual growth and revelations of God's goodness that have unfolded through daily experiences with prayer. I believe that what we focus on as our storyline speaks directly to this question of "Why is my healing taking so long?"

In every one of my personal healing experiences, prayer has brought about a perception shift. Healing prayer involves looking at life from a divine perspective and working out from this new point of view.

Prayer develops spiritual sense - the capacity we all possess to understand and see divine reality without the encumbrances of fear, pain or doubt. When one understands that what he sees and feels through spiritual sense is his actual state of being, consent occurs, evidence changes, and we call this change a healing.

To my sense, Paul gives a good explanation of what occurs in healing prayer: He says, "that ye put off concerning the former conversation the old man, which is corrupt according to the deceitful lusts;  And be renewed in the spirit of your mind; And that ye put on the new man, which after God is created in righteousness and true holiness." (Ephesians 4:21-24)

However long or short the period of time for the shift, healing is never a mind game or magic event. The time required for a healing is also never problem-driven - that is to say, one problem is not inherently more difficult or time-consuming to heal than another. Healing is the result of a perception shift, spiritual growth and progress in putting what we know into practice - the three most natural things in life.
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I had a longstanding relationship problem during which I worked with a number of practitioners to resolve the problem through prayer for a number of years. Then one day, when my thought was occupied elsewhere, the healing came. I was mad. Why now? Why was this healed on a day I had been praying about something else (in fact, praying for someone else)? Why hadn't my first prayers been enough? I posed these questions to the last practitioner I had worked with. She suggested I ask God and await an answer. Six months later, I knew why. It took that full six months for me to let go of my life-story as one long line of relationship troubles and to see that, in fact, my perspective had been steadily growing more spiritual, less self-centered, and my heart had been opening, more and more, to forgiveness and love. The subject of my prayers had very gently shifted from my problem to one of exploring what God really is and does. The day of my healing, I saw, felt, and accepted, God's total goodness and the fact that blessedness is the only true state of God's man. And this view apparently washed me clean of a lot of longstanding problems, the relationship issue included.

The healing didn't occur over time. It occurred out of time, or rather, when I took myself off the mortal, limited timeline of humanhood with its ups and downs, and consented to ever-present blessedness and the divine state of God's man.

The healings that have had the deepest impact on my life have brought with them some of the most significant life-lessons. Yes, many of these have taken time. But the time element fades when weighed against the spiritual growth and the increased capacity to help others. When Jesus' disciples struggled to heal a problem that had gone on a long time, Jesus healed it by rebuking the devilish, "faithless and perverse generation" of questions, "How long has this gone on?" "How long will this continue?" that weighed on the case. Then he spoke of the power of mustard seed faith. (See Matthew 17:14-21)  Mustard seeds seem small and insignificant. To me, Jesus teaches us not to be distracted by the size or length of time - or any other mortal measure - of a problem. We are to get off the problem entirely and plant our prayer-seed in God's all-powerful present Christ. The message of Christ is that an understanding of God through prayer, and a life lived consistently with that prayer, moves mountains.

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Christ Jesus was right. Prayer and fasting (persistence in daily living) does move mountains.

Speaking of Christ-healing, Mary Baker Eddy - the discoverer of Jesus' method of healing prayer - wrote from experience: "There is nothing difficult nor toilsome in this task, when the way is pointed out; but self-denial, sincerity, Christianity, and persistence alone win the prize, as they usually do in every department of life." (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p.462)

Don't be cornered by the clock or a mortal timeline. Don't let a problem be to you a fixed, stationary mountain. Don't think of your faith - and the power of your prayer - as too small. Your life-story and healing potential is infinitely greater than that. Pray. Persist. Grow. Express. You won't miss out on your healing. It is unfolding outside of time.

Today's blog is a reader-generated subject. Your interests and questions are important to me. This blog is for you. So I am open to tackling the subjects that you would like to think more deeply about! Please let me know in the comments below. You are welcome to ask under your name, or anonymously, if you prefer.

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bong joven
10/26/2011 03:44:32 pm

juat so grand and perfect.love B

Michelle Nanouche link
10/26/2011 10:12:29 pm

Thank you, Bong.

Anon.
10/26/2011 10:28:17 pm

I'm trying to not let a timeline get into the picture, but with an illness that gives 6 months to 2 years to live, it is difficult not to. How do I get the human concept of a time limitation out of thought?
Thank you.

Michelle Nanouche link
10/27/2011 03:43:07 am

Dear, dear Anon,

I believe it is absolutely essential to make the shift as soon as one can - from problem-based prayer and reasoning (which is very hypnotic and can leave one struggling against hopelessness) solution-oriented, active witnessing to what God is and does. The mesmeric pull to to time and symptoms must not be allowed to drive your prayers.

I blogged about this question a few weeks ago. You might find it helpful to look at: http://michellenanoucheinenglish.weebly.com/4/post/2011/10/a-question-on-prayer.html

Another post, also, may be helpful to you: http://michellenanoucheinenglish.weebly.com/4/post/2011/10/a-certain-form-of-prayer.html

And finally, these two articles on spirituality.com explain how I had two work through similar fears in two healings I had a number of years ago:

http://www.spirituality.com/article.jhtml?ElementId=/repositories/shcomarticle/Jun2011/1308314768.xml&ElementName=Flying%20in%20the%20face%20of%20fear

http://www.spirituality.com/article.jhtml?ElementId=/repositories/shcomarticle/Jan2007/1168284233.xml&ElementName=Discovering%20my%20spiritual%20lineage

Thank you for asking the question. I am pretty certain others have been helped by it.

Caz
10/27/2011 04:33:26 am

This website is great Michelle I have read several of your articles in the Journal and Sentinel and am thrilled to see you have a blog, I will be following it for sure. I have been battling a severe problem for 3 years and 'hanging on in there' is made just that bit easier when hearing of others' success stories.Thank you. x

Michelle Nanouche link
10/27/2011 04:39:33 am

Hello Caz,

So great to read your comment! I hope you will also offer up topics that are of interest to you for future blogs. So glad the site is helpful to you, and I hope that your own healing will impel you to write and share the gratitude to help others on their way.

carrie
10/28/2011 12:00:35 pm

It just seems so drawn out and unpredictable. This is not what I thought CS was ... I thought it healed quickly and that you could rely on practitioners if you weren't able to effect healing on your own.

Michelle Nanouche link
10/28/2011 12:18:11 pm

Dear Carrie,

I hear you. And when a problem has gone on for a long time it is really hard not to allow that problem to form our world view.

There really isn't a one-size fits all solution when it comes to spiritual healing. And no one can step in and take our individual place, or act by proxy for us, on our walk with God to understand spiritual reality. The role of a practitioner is to pray and support the ability of the individual to see, and understand, and experience the healing power of the Christ. But the long or short of it is really between the individual and God.

I can offer something that was helpful to me when I was dealing with a problem involving chronic pain. This chat by Diane Marrapodi on spirituality.com offered me some real eye-opening inspiration and helped me feel the momentum and progress that were rightfully mine. I offer the link to you in the hope that it will encourage you on your journey:

http://www.spirituality.com/article.jhtml?ElementId=/repositories/shcomarticle/May2010/1273672305.xml&ElementName=Why%20there%20is%20always%20hope

carrie
10/28/2011 12:33:41 pm

I have heard that but it never sounded like anything Mrs. Eddy would have said. And it doesn't sound like what I read in old lectures either. Or the book on CS Wartime Activities. Oh well. I guess things have changed.

carrie
10/28/2011 12:41:05 pm

I know what brought this to mind .. it was a passage in Christian Healer in which Mrs. Eddy was quoted as saying "I am out of patience at hearing a student ask his patient to work when the patient is up to the ears in the waves. Don't ask anything of your patient. Show him your Science and when he is healed he will work."

Michelle Nanouche link
10/28/2011 12:56:04 pm

Dear Carrie,

Yes, that is a wonderful quote and I refer to it often. But in instructing students and talking to patients, Mrs. Eddy had various views and approaches to the healing practice. She was not a one size fits all metaphysician.

In the same book you refer to she told a patient, "When, if ever, you have a return of your complaints, fix your mind steadfastly on this thought: No mortal mind, or malice, can affect my mind or body. Be strong in that consciousness of Truth, and if you gain the point of conviction of its truth, and the perception that is was a directed shaft of mortal mind, you will destroy the suffering."

Jesus had various approaches to healing depending on the case. Sometimes he healed without a word. Sometimes he shared a truth. Sometimes he rebuked a devil. Sometimes he touched the patient. Sometimes he didn't. Sometimes he asked the patient to do something. Sometimes he didn't. His role was to perceive the need of the case and aid the individual to see his perfection.

Bottom lie, there is no reason for you healing to take a long time. The Christ can do for you, for us all, right now, what the best arguments of the human mind can't accomplish: Heal.

carrie
10/28/2011 01:08:53 pm

you have been gracious and kind. thank you.

Michelle Nanouche link
10/28/2011 01:12:39 pm

Dear Carie,

You are truly welcome. It is a pleasure to think deeply about such important things. I am grateful for your comments and your willingness to discuss things so honestly and openly.

carrie
1/13/2012 10:01:01 pm

What I don't understand is what to do about the panic ... as symptoms grow ever worse, more threatening, more debilitating.

Michelle Nanouche link
1/14/2012 12:13:37 am

Don't sit there in panic, Carrie. If you are stuck and nothing is moving on your case; if you are not shaking off the fear that keeps pulling you into the symptoms through your own prayers, get help from someone to pray with/for you. If you have done that, and after a period of time nothing has moved, think about switching practitioners. Sometimes another angle/perspective can help break the mesmerism and wake you up to your healing.

Tamara
3/20/2012 12:24:56 pm

I am so grateful you have recommended this blog again. I read it today from a completely different perspective!

Michelle Nanouche link
3/20/2012 12:45:04 pm

Great! So glad you popped back to read it again! I did, too. :)

Wisdom
5/22/2012 03:39:46 pm

Thank you for making healing understandable and can i also add
in God's word there is time for everything: Ecclesiastes 3
New International Version (NIV)
A Time for Everything

3 There is a time(A) for everything,
and a season for every activity under the heavens:
2 a time to be born and a time to die,
a time to plant and a time to uproot,(B)
3 a time to kill(C) and a time to (HEAL), Did you catch that there is a time for one to be healed God's timing.

Carrie
7/27/2012 06:40:57 pm

The time for healing is always always now. Because the perfection of creation, of the kingdom of heaven, is now, Now is the accepted time. To those leaning on the infinite, TODAY is big with blessings. And this I read in a bound volume decades ago ... "There is no futurity in Christian Science treatment." The point is, there should be no delay. The human mind is not in charge of God's appearing. I will defend myself and every CS patient against any argument that later is OK, that somehow in some swirly mystical place healing takes its own time. I do not believe this. The Truth is crisp clear and here. Period. I suggest you read "The Story of Christian Science Wartime Activities 1939-1946." It will take your breath away.

Gordon Myers link
7/14/2012 05:51:39 pm

Thank you for this post. This was very helpful to me!


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    Michelle Nanouche, Christian Science teacher, spirituality, healing, prayer

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    I have practiced Christian Science professionally in
    some form since 1979.
    But my journey with
    Christian Science started
    in a Sunday school
    where as a young child
    I was taught the Scriptures and some simple basics
    of Jesus' method of
    scientific Christian healing.
    A significant experience
    at the age of twelve
    opened my eyes to
    the great potential
    of this practice. 
    After impaling my foot
    on a nail,
    I prayed the way I had learned
    in Sunday school.
    Within moments
    the pain stopped
    and healing began.
    By the next morning the wound had disappeared completely.
    Having experienced
    the great potential
    ​of Christian Science,
    there would be no
    turning back. 

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