 Posted Wednesday, March 17, 2010 8:12 PM
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Hello,
I just recieved several copies of death certificates from various family members who were all CS and who died while trying to have healings. I am no longer in CS, and it's been hard not knowing what my family history was. Now that I know, I have to admit I'm freaking out. I try to eat healthy, pray frequently and all that, but I guess I am shocked at how severe the issues were when these dear family members died. How do 'normal' people know these things about their history and not live in constant fear of it happenind to them? Or is it just me? I know there is another thread addressing fear on this site which has been helpful to me. I guess I need to calm down....
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Posted Thursday, March 18, 2010 9:06 AM
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Yes..Calm down.
I feel like patting you on the head and comforting you. If I feel this way ..imagine how your Father feels. And that’s a good place to start. Literally imagine how God Loves you. Imagine how it would feel to know the love of the creator of the universe directed toward you. Bask in that for a while.
Just because you have left cs doesn't mean you have left he embrace of your heavenly Father. We still need to recognize that we are adored by God.That God is Love and that fear is not given to us by God.
To walk away from false teachings in cs does not mean we have to walk away from expecting goodnss and health . God still IS perfect. We may be lost or feel like we're lost but God never takes His eyes off of us. Right? This is not a cs concept. This is scriptural. And in our hearts we know it to be true. God provided the way for us because His nature is love. He showed us his love toward us in Jesus. That loving is still going on. God is real.. Jesus is alive. We are secure because of His love.
If you think you are subject to all sorts of disease because you have family who died from this or that..Yes, on the surface that sounds scary. But only if you have no trust in God. Rember the scripture that says 'I wish above all.. that ye prosper and be in good health'?
Isn't that the heart of God.? Jesus said 'fear not little flock'. Again, isn't that the heart of God? In His eyes we are as sheep. In many ways defenseless. But because of our defenselessness we are watched over by the Shepherd. He doesn't fall asleep. He loves us. If we wander He brings us back.
Your relatives may have ultimately died with some problem. But does that really define your heritage? Aren't we the sons and daughters of God? Didn't God provide The Way?
If you think you have something wrong with you feel free to go see a Dr. But don’t discount prayer. After all, we are not simply machines. We are created in the image and likeness of God. Mrs Eddy didn’t invent that concept. If we believe we are subject to disease because we have sinned, don’t forget God provided a way for us to be free of the law.
We need to have ‘the peace that passeth all understanding’. This is God’s way for us. He wants us to be at peace. Not fearful. A lttle faith puts us at peace. Make sure you have bowed down to God in the way He laid out for us and then you may rest in peace. I like this promise from Jesus..’low, I Am with you always..even unto the end of the world’. That’s comforting.
I don't know how 'normal people' deal with it but that's how I deal with it.
Born free
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Posted Thursday, March 18, 2010 9:18 AM
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I struggle with this too. It's part of life, to grapple with one's own mortality. It's just that seeing your family history is something you have just found out, rather than knowing about it from early in your life, like most non-Christian Scientists do. The level of denial is so strong in Christian Science, that when we leave it, we can feel overwhelmed by the reality of human life. Plus, there was always that belief in the church that horrible things would happen to you if you ever left Christian Science. That's part of why I left the CS church -- because of how they try to insulate themselves from human life, and look past human suffering.
I have seen the glassy smile of a Christian Scientist when confronted with illness or death, the way they look past me while I know they are mentally denying what I am telling them. When my ex-husband died (I met him at Principia), mutual friends from Prin would give me that glassy smile and quote S&H at me about the unreality of death, or else turn away and change the subject. Do you know how awful it is to speak of a deceased loved one and have the other person who knew them too, just turn away and change the subject?
My ex's other, non-CS friends just put their arms around me and said, "I know. I miss him too."
Which do you suppose was more healing? Human compassion is a great healer. It doesn't take away the pain of grief, the fear of illness, or raise the dead. It offers the warmth and understanding of a human being who feels your pain, and who will be there for you when you are feeling alone and frightened. It's amazing just how healing that is. And it's a huge difference between many Christian Scientists and the people I am close to now. When you face illness or death in Christian Science, either you grapple with it alone, or with a practitioner, but you don't talk about it, and try to keep it out of your thoughts, so as not to "give it reality". Or, you seek out medical help, and again you are alone, because although there is the rare CS who will give you support while you have medical treatment, in general the church will not do so.
But outside the CS church, people are there for you. You don't have to face disease and death alone, struggling with your books, feeling guilty and terrified if the healing doesn't come, because if the healing doesn't come, and the practitioner doesn't bring you healing either, what recourse do you have? For non-CS people, they have friends and family and medical professionals who will help and support and if the disease cannot be healed, they stay with you and offer pain relief and give you compassion and comfort.
We all die. But do we die alone, clutching our books, as my grandfather did, in pain and ignorance of what was causing his pain? Or like my father did, because he agreed to my mother's insistence that he receive medical care for his cancer? I personally think radiation and chemotherapy are nasty treatments, to be avoided at all costs, but even so, he had a wonderful supportive doctor, our whole family was with him every step of the way, my mother's (non-CS) relatives came to visit all the time, and when he was terminal, he was given morphine to ease the pain away so that he died in peace, surrounded by friends and family. Before he slipped into his final coma, he had an evening of laughing at my cousin's famous funny stories. I will always treasure that memory as his last evening of conscious life.
The only ones among friends and family members who never visited him, never called him or wrote or offered the slightest bit of comfort, or even contact, during the ten months he was fighting his cancer, were his sister and nephews, who are the only family members who are still in the CS church.
They didn't bother to come to the memorial service, either. Of course.
Ann
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Posted Thursday, March 18, 2010 12:36 PM
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[/quote] Human compassion is a great healer. It doesn't take away the pain of grief, the fear of illness, or raise the dead. It offers the warmth and understanding of a human being who feels your pain, and who will be there for you when you are feeling alone and frightened. It's amazing just how healing that is. And it's a huge difference between many Christian Scientists and the people I am close to now. [quote]
Ann
You said a lot in your post and I'm sorry you've experienced how cold some/most csers can seem in the grief process.I don't want to dismiss all your points but I did want to mention what struck me in the above quote,
And Ann, I'm not really trying tosell you anything here. because if I rmember correctly you ar leaning toward agnostic so don't feel I'm stepping on your toes .
What you observed about human compassion ..the warmth and understanding of a human who feels your pain. This,I've come to see, is exactly what was extended to us when God exposed himself in Jesus. Whether we see Jesus ans the Son of God or as God come in the flesh, The thing is..God does feel our pain, does have compassion as only one who has experienced mortality and grief and loss and hurt and pleasur and pain can have compassion. Do you see what I mean? If God himself lived in the flesh as we do and suffered all that we suffer would not he then be the ideal compassionate comfortor? And as the one who holds all the knowledge of the universe and has all power to relieve our suffering....isn't he then just what we need?
I believe this is just what Jesus is. He has seen our pain and is alive and cares.Whether we believe he is God or God's right hand he is exactly what we need. he is not some principle or energy or mindless force. god knows us and loves us and can relate to all that frightens us.
If we let Jesus be more than a man. If we let Jesus be god with us, as the name Emanuel means, then we see that he was and is God expressing His compassionate love to us. Then we see that God acted out his love to us.We were taught in cs that God doesn't see our pain or know anything about it. So we felt alone in our darkest hour and self condemned for believing in the dark or for not 'seeing' the light. But god Does know our frailties. He came to us to do what he knows we cannot do on our own.He came in a very human way.
I hope you can see what I'm saying.
I had to get out of cs and look hard at this man Jesus to see it. It was hard to do because there is a stigma attached to him in the world and also because we were steered away from him in cs. He was not to be glorified let alone deified.
For what it's worth I mean this in love.
born free
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Posted Thursday, March 18, 2010 4:25 PM
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born free,
Thank you for your response, and I can see that you offer it with love. And I accept it in that way. I am glad you have this experience and belief, and that it brings you comfort.
My point, though, was that human comfort too is healing, and it should not be discounted, as I have seen Christian Scientists discount it. I am contrasting simple human compassion with the lack of true compassion that Christian Science seems to teach.
When I was struggling with having left the church, I also was struggling with getting divorced. I saw counselors, and felt guilty about it (since this is not encouraged in CS). And I found the free expression of emotion in group therapy very disconcerting, having grown up in a family that discouraged any emotional expression. And I find that Christian Science also discourages it.
It took me a lot of time and exposure to get used to being around people who expressed the human emotions they were feeling, instead of denying them and insisting they were unnecessary and unreal. I learned that you don't heal by ignoring or denying your emotions, you heal by acknowledging them and moving through them -- emotions are not intellectual, they are physical, and they need to be expressed. They can be expressed to other people, to Jesus, to God, or whatever or whoever you find comforting. The point is, this is far better and more healing than spending time denying their reality.
I am not meaning to discount the comfort and healing that can be felt from the presence of God or a relationship with Jesus. I am pointing out the pitfalls of ignoring the suffering of ourselves and others, that Christian Scientists seem to do, and how this lack of human connection and human compassion can be crippling to their own psychological health.
Ann
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Posted Thursday, March 18, 2010 5:14 PM
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Ann
I completely agree. The human touch or a human smile or a kind wordfrom someone are healing and soo important. That seems to be how we are built. To deny those needs is to deny this life. We Are in this world. It Is god's creation.We Do need human interraction and compassion in hard times.
My only point was that in essece God became man. That;s how He Chose to present Himself to us. He did it that way for the very reasons you voiced. We need a face on God. we need to know He has been through all we go through. I think He is completely in agreement with yu
born free
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Posted Thursday, March 18, 2010 8:06 PM
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Thank you Ann and Born Free for your comments and ideas. I am sorry for my over reaction, but getting all that information all at once was a little bit of a shock, and kind of like losing all those people all over again. It's so strange to see someones life reduced to a piece of paper.
I'm getting better and better at being free from CS, but it takes so long! It's hard not to get discouraged when you see that it seems to take others a long time as well. I suppose that is a remnant of CS, expecting instantaneous results. I don't know why, in my case I never had a healing that happened instantly so I'm not sure why I'd expect this to come quickly either.
Thank you again.
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Posted Thursday, March 18, 2010 8:46 PM
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Anonymous,
Interesting that you should bring up this topic since I just got home from our 46 year old nephew's funeral. Last Sunday night he died of a heart attack, a day or so after returning home from a cruise to the Bahamas and after "not feeling well" while exercising with his wife at the gym. It was a big shock to everyone. Here are my thoughts:
I saw literally hundreds of people put their arms around my family members and offer love, support, prayers, and tears. Human comfort was crucial and will continue to be crucial as the family moves forward and goes through the grieving and emotional healing process.
Faith -- and thehope of eternal life through Jesus Christ -- was central to the funeral service and will continue to be a source of emotional healing and support to this family.
Regarding your family's medical history: I suggest viewing it as a gift. Certain medical disorders have been found to run in families (because of genetics, not because of spiritual failure), so it is truly helpful to have a "heads up" if these disorders have been observed your family. Preventative measures and early detection can be crucial to treating things like cancer and heart disease, so you're better off knowing if they run in your family than not knowing.
It's hard not to get discouraged when you see that it seems to take others a long time as well.
Taking medicine used to make me feel like a failure but it's simply not an issue anymore. Breaking free from CS can take a long time, but it's not impossible. Be patient with yourself. 
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Posted Friday, March 19, 2010 9:00 AM
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Dear anonymous
Just thought I would share this with you. I came out of CS about 4 years ago. My Dad, a practitioner, had died ten years before that. He had suffered on and off for a few years with dizzy spells and other symptoms which would mysteriously confine him to his chair for a few days. These were never talked about of course, and he never went to a doctor. My mother (non CS) always maintained that he was probably suffering from high blood pressure - he was overweight, poured salt on his food etc. Finally, during the course of one of these bouts of illness, he died of a heart attack. The CS members of the church said things along the lines of - well, its perhaps for the best, he would never have wanted medical care as he became older. Of course at the time, I took all this in as the truth.
When the Lord brought me out of CS, it started to dawn on me that had my Dad sought medical help for his condition, he would probably still be alive. There are very good medical treatments for high blood pressure. I realised with absolute horror that my Dad was also a victim of CS just like all the other people, including the child cases, that I had just been reading about. This, despite the fact that he was a lifelong CSer, class taught, a practioner and had actually given talks to
his "association".
Two years ago, I too was diagnosed with high blood pressure, and with the help of my doctor, this is now under control. It is possible that this is an inherited condition, and I realise now that had I remained in CS, I too could have become a victim like my father. Its always better to know whats really going on.
Hope this helps!
Starfish
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Posted Friday, March 19, 2010 9:11 AM
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Dear Linda,
I am so sorry for the loss of your nephew. I'm sending you cyber hugs!
Ann
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