Two weeks ago yesterday, I got a headache and started to feel ill in a short period of time. I squeezed in a bit of prayer for relief, amidst all my other praying, but the suffering intensified. After a while, I stopped what I was doing, felt a bit flustered by the on-going pain, and retorted, “What is going on here?”

As if a person was standing in front of me and practically yelling in my face, I heard the clear cut words, “You are going to get sick!!!”

I was startled because the declaration of evil was so explicit and bold.

I slumped back in my chair to understand what was happening.

The first lesson I learned was how the experience graphically illustrated a main point in Christian Science that all illness starts as suggestion. It does not start as a physical condition in the body. It starts as suggestion and strives to get the ear of the target with the intent of convincing the target that the suggestion is a necessity.

I decided that the aggressor was not succeeding by being subtle with me this time, so ramped up its tactics to see if I could be intimidated into submission through forceful verbal articulation.

Too often, people listen to evil suggestions without censoring them; accept them into human consciousness as legitimate, and then see the suggestion manifest in the body. They don’t notice what is happening until a physical symptom appears. And then, because they never understood the mental nature of disease, believe the problem is physical. And it never was. It was suggestion that started the illness, not a germ, virus, or poison. And that was exactly what was happening to me. Evil was not successful with a subtle, “You are going to get sick,” so it tried to influence me with a super-loud-in-your-face attempt to convince me.

Even though I felt physical pain, I did not try to heal the pain any longer. I knew the trouble was not physical. It was an outside mental influence trying to mesmerize my thinking into accepting several days of sickness as necessary. The outside voice needed to be refuted, rejected, denied and silenced. And that’s the direction I focused my prayers.

There were other suggestions to refute like the fear that other people around me were sick and I was feeling the effect of contagion. Also the strong suggestion that I was in the season to get ill like millions of others around the country. But after hearing this voice, “You are going to get sick!” speak so positively in my thought, I knew any sickness was not physically produced. It was pure suggestion.

Obviously I had believed the suggestion to some degree because I was feeling the beginning stages of what appeared to be several days of suffering in the offing. But I decided evil also was losing hope of convincing me because it was working so hard to overwhelm my attention. And I wasn’t going to be convinced!

“Resist the devil and he shall flee from you,” Paul instructed.

I affirmed my wellness as a child of God. I declared my health to be spiritual, permanent, built into my being and never lost. I knew disease was unreal, unnecessary, and unimpressive. I knew evil had no influence over my thinking, body or experience. I knew I was God’s health manifest. I knew my spirituality was immunity from materiality and all suffering. I could not get sick anymore than wet could be dry.

After a few hours of quiet, steadfast, assiduous prayer, along with other projects I was involved with, I suddenly felt a major change in my mental environment. Even though there was still some pain, all the turbulence, turmoil and grief evil had been trying to stir up in my mental home, vanished. Calm permeated my thought. The storm was over. A rainbow of hope and promise lit my mental sky. I felt the aggressor had given up its arguments and vacated the premises. I knew the physical healing was very near.

I laid down for a good night’s sleep, fell asleep quickly and woke in the morning at 100%. There has not been a hint of illness since that time. And I am very grateful.