Testimonies on being healed of self-hatred and suicidal thoughts

October 15th, 2014 testimony

I have had a terrible time trying to get this testimony ready today. I am not ever sure what that means, but I do know that if it reaches someone in a positive way, then it was worth it!

Before that moment that I asked God for help — before He brought me here — I was a complete wreck. People I had known for years thought I was confident and had it together, but that was totally false. Over the course of twenty years I became increasingly convinced that my life meant nothing. And, during that same time I felt increasingly distant from God.

That is no coincidence, as I now understand.

Because I felt unworthy, I sabotaged myself to make that feeling appear right. If there was a right way to eat, to live, to interact with people: I did all I could to be wrong. I actually was suicidal for much longer than I’ve ever admitted to anyone, and because of that I did some foolish things.

I am saying this, not to bring the mood down, but to let everyone know that if God could choose me — if He could have a purpose for me and make me worth something — than absolutely no one is unworthy! The fact that He brought me here to be useful astounds me everyday. With all the work I do here, I know I’m not the one holding it together. Being surrounded by love and support and given this work is what I need to heal.

I am so grateful for every moment of freedom that God has given me from my old life and that what I am learning here brings honest results.

August 19th, 2015 testimony

I am so grateful tonight for God showing me that I am worthy of Love. Before coming to Plainfield I always had this thought that if I wasn’t fulfilling some role or purpose for people, that they had no reason to like or love me. Because of this, I always felt a moment away from being discarded, since I never knew how long my usefulness might last. I feel it was this constant worry that brought me close to suicide so many times in my life.

I actually even entertained the idea, when I first arrived in Plainfield, that I would do whatever work I could for this church, and then maybe then I would be allowed to end my life. However, the teaching here is too practical and too real and too loving for that thought to have remained for long. Christian Science, as I am learning at this church, helped me to answer a question I had since I was young:

Am I an accident?

The wonderful answer is, not one of us are accidents — we are all God’s ideas! I am so grateful for Christian Science being made available so that we can realize that worth, and live up to the potential that is inherent in God’s original idea of us. I don’t know the half of what that means for me in the long run, but I do know it allows me to put to rest those beliefs I had about myself that only held me back and held me down, so that I may serve God.

December 9th, 2015 testimony

I am so grateful for all I am learning in this church, and for all the ways my life has changed.

I was reminded during a recent Roundtable of the idea that Science and Health is our autobiography. When I first heard that, I really had no idea what it meant. Last week, however, I was going through my computer, archiving old files I no longer needed. I came across some things I had written before I came to this church, and to say the least, these writings were from a deeply depressed and troubled thought.

As I read, I realized that everything I had written in the decade before I was led here was one long suicide note. And then I got it! Science and Health is our autobiography, because it is the story of our life with God, which is the only Life. Anything we do that is supposedly ‘outside of God’ is merely the story of what we do until that unreal existence dies.

I remember being in that dark place, moments from taking my life, and looking up at the ceiling and saying out loud, “God, I need your help.” I knew it was now or never! Immediately things changed (or so it felt!) and within a week I was here in Plainfield. God does answer prayers and change lives, and I am so grateful for how quickly He met my need when I was at my lowest.

What a blessing Christian Science is! Not just for the benefits it has brought me, but for the knowledge that there are so many others out there now, in that dark place, and I know that the work done here is making a difference and will reach them. I can’t go back and let myself know that all will be well. I can however, along with everyone at this church, reach out and let the world know just that: God is right here with us!

January 9th, 2019 testimony

I am very grateful for all the much-needed changes that have happened to me because of Christian Science.

There were many years that I was very anti-social. I did my best for a long time to keep most everyone away from me. I worked solitary jobs that had minimal contact with people. Generally, if I had to interact with people, I was not nice at all. My basic thought was, “If I treat my family well and work hard, nothing else should matter.” I think I am only today realizing that this was the opposite tactic to the one my mother used, which was to make the world feel she was this wonderful person, and then come home and treat me horribly.

When I came here in 2013, it was after a prolonged downward spiral. It became clear that on all fronts I had failed, and everything about what I thought and believed and did was the cause. That was the biggest reason I wanted to commit suicide: I believed everything about me as a person was toxic.

But then God brought me to Plainfield, and I started to learn what this church teaches. A few points made an immediate impression: First, the idea that the garbage I had thought was my identity was just a lie I could stop giving power to. Second, as Mary Baker Eddy wrote on page 253 of Science and Health, “If you believe in and practise wrong knowingly, you can at once change your course and do right.” Well, I certainly knew that old way was wrong, and was happy to be here learning the new, better way.

So here I am, learning to live Christian Science, and it is impossible to mention every change in just 4 minutes. The best example I can give of the transformation I have gone through — other than the joy and purpose I have in my life now — is a day I had a few weeks ago. I went on a long car ride, and at two different stops I had four people come up to me and ask me various questions. There were a lot of other people around, yet they came to the big guy with a beard, the man that many used to call, “unapproachable.” And, I was happy to help them.

I thank God, Christian Science, this church, and my practitioner for showing me the way to love my neighbor, and also to love myself. Thank you!

March 10th, 2021 testimony

I am very grateful for all I am learning here about Christian Science, and how this Science has brought so many healings. I had things from my past that was unable to deal with, things that required this teaching and practitioner support to overcome, which I am grateful for.

I had a lot of self-loathing that has been healed. I didn’t really have a good relationship with my mother, and I now feel healed of this. Most other major issues have been healed, at least as far as I am aware.

The only lingering painful memory was from just after my first wife and I divorced. When she remarried, there was a time where she had our kids call the new husband “daddy.” This was very painful, and left me pretty angry for a long time.

Learning to live this Science, and having the place and purpose that God has given me here, the pain of the memory was definitely lessening. Couple that with the fact that my kids and I have a really good relationship, I certainly have nothing to complain about. Also, knowing that God is my Father and their Father helps a lot.

That said, it still was the only memory I had to actively handle my feelings about, if I ever thought of it. This was until just a few months ago, when a real angel message helped me to finally be healed of this. I had the sudden realization of what it means that the human mind, when left unhandled, really works to hurt us and separate us from the Truth and how it applied to that situation.

My ex-wife didn’t know how to handle animal magnetism, so she let it work through her to try to hurt me. I didn’t know how to handle animal magnetism, so I took it personally and let it hurt me. But in the end, the reality is, it wasn’t from God, and it wasn’t true about her or me, and Christian Science allows me to prove what Mrs. Eddy wrote on page 538 of Science and Health: “evil has no history.”

I am so grateful for this understanding, as it has healed that situation completely. Christian Science constantly proves itself to be the only way to true healing and true happiness. I am very grateful to be a member of this Church, and for the support of my practitioner. Thank you!

Also, this is a reply given on January 6th, 2023 when someone asked what it means to be a child of God

There has been a lot explained and clarified about this in the works of Mary Baker Eddy, the early workers, and also in the Roundtable discussions here in Plainfield (perhaps especially those that coincide with the “Mortals and Immortals” lessons) so I will just offer my thoughts here.

The mistaken view of ourselves is the mortal, brought on by the claim of animal magnetism, or the belief we are separate from God. With that false sense of our origin, we begin to accept human knowledge and its beliefs of heredity, lack, chance, mortality, etc., while personal sense creates divisions and hierarchies between every “mortal” in the form of family, nationality, race, food preferences, etc. It is essentially a fictional character we have been mesmerized to believe we are, existing inside of a mythological counterfeit of God’s creation, and that is why “A wicked mortal is not the idea of God.” (S&H, p. 289)

A child of God is the truth of who we are, and is the standpoint where we must demonstrate from. (see S&H, p. 322:3-7) One definition of Principle which I have found very helpful is “divine origin.” Mrs. Eddy wrote “Principle and its idea is one, and this one is God, omnipotent, omniscient, and omnipresent Being, and His reflection is man and the universe.” (S&H, pgs. 465-466) There is no separation between our divine origin and our true self, nor between any one of us and our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ.

Mary Baker Eddy wrote the following on page 18 of Miscellaneous Writings, which feels best to end this on: “…thou shalt recognize thyself as God’s spiritual child only, and the true man and true woman, the all-harmonious ‘male and female,’ as of spiritual origin, God’s reflection, — thus as children of one common Parent, — wherein and whereby Father, Mother, and child are the divine Principle and divine idea, even the divine ‘Us’ — one in good, and good in One.

“With this recognition man could never separate himself from good, God; and he would necessarily entertain habitual love for his fellow-man.”