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In 1981, I had the opportunity to perform in Paris while I was visiting Freddy Koella and his drummer, Jean-Michael. Freddy is a virtuoso on the violin and guitar. He has worked with Bob Dylan, k.d. lang, Willy Deville, Francis Cabrel, and many others.

While I was with Freddy and Jean-Michael in France, I told them I was quitting my band (The Wommack Brothers Band) and was going into the healing practice of Christian Science. My twin brother, Kevin, and I started the band together and for ten years, we'd performed over two hundred shows a year, performing at times with Journey, Elvis Costello, Stevie Ray Vaughan, and others.

Freddy and Jean-Michael wondered why I would stop writing and performing. Music was everything. It was the best.

I explained that I wasn’t depriving myself of the best. I’d found something even better. I told them that everything I loved about music and performing I was finding in my healing practice, as well.

When people ask me to pray, I don’t wait and hope for something good to happen. Healing is not based on blind faith.

When I grab a guitar, I expect and then play a beautiful or powerful melody, or a driving rhythm. I believe, melody is God impelled.

Just so, when I pray, I expect and bring God’s beauty, harmony, the tones and texture of health, right to where pain and sorrow seem so solid and real. I know it sounds simplistic, however, I’ve found that troubles fade before spiritual facts, just as darkness yields to light. Health, I believe, is God impelled, as well.

I have found that just as in music, spiritual healing is governed by rules and laws. There is a divine Principle. This living-Principle, many call God, demands order, melody.

For me, prayer as a first choice when it comes to health care has become natural. Apparently, it has for many others, as well. A Pew Research survey revealed that 36 percent of Americans say they’ve experienced or seen healing through prayer.

After explaining why I was leaving the band, John-Michael showed me the back of his hand. There was a large lump on it. He asked me to pray for him. I told him I would.

Months later, Freddy and John-Michael came to the United States. When they arrived, John-Michael stuck out his hand. The lump was gone. He said, “I’ve got a scratchy throat. Do you think you can do something about this too?”

– Keith Wommack is a Syndicated Columnist, Christian Science practitioner and teacher, husband, and step-dad. He is a legislative liaison for spiritual healing & Christian Science in Texas. He has been described as a spiritual spur (since every horse needs a little nudge now and then). Keith’s syndicated columns originate at: http://texashealthblog.com/

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Years ago, after an accident, I needed nursing care. I expected help from a nurse, but I got a lot more than I expected. As soon as the nurse walked in the door, I actually began to feel better. The complete healing came not too long after she left.

This experience taught me that the healing effect a nurse brings can occur even before the nurse ever administers to the patient. But, it also raised some questions.

Are nurses aware that they can influence a patient’s health in this way? Do they truly value this ability?

Chris Jones, in a recent Chicago Tribune column, describes how Anna Deavere Smith, an actress in Twilight: Los Angles, The West Wing, and Nurse Jackie, recently revved up thousands of nurses in Chicago.

Jones wrote, “At one point in the colossal main ballroom at the Sheraton Hotel and Towers — packed to the gills with members of National Nurses United — Smith persuaded the assembled nurses to stand, find three or 4 fellow nurses they did not know, look each nurse in the eye and say to each one in turn, ‘We need you to heal this country.’"

From reading Smith’s passionate plea, I can see that we all need reminders of what we can accomplish. And it is nice to know that if nurses didn’t already know they could impact the health of many, they are beginning to hear about it today.

Now, what enables a nurse to have such a healing impact before ever administering to a patient?

Recently, I sat next to a neurological nurse on a flight. She was returning home from a conference where she had been one of the facilitators. She spoke to me about the frustration she felt regarding her profession. She recognized the frequent lack of attention to caring for the “whole man” rather than just the body. She felt strongly that a patient’s spiritual nature needed appreciating and nurturing. She knew deep down that spiritual considerations were essential to experiencing lasting physical health.

After the flight, I came across a video of a panel discussion, Nursing's Spiritual Roots in Contemporary Practice, which had been hosted in 2009 by The Mary Baker Eddy Library for the Betterment of Humanity. The panelists echoed the sentiments of the neurological nurse and yet went further, answering my last question.

During the presentation, Peggy Burkhardt, Professor of Nursing at the University of West Virginia, shared her early experience in the Catholic faith. Then she explained that during the Dark Ages, priests and nuns were in charge of health care. However, when science and especially modern medicine established itself, basically, the church, including the spiritual qualities which inspired it, was told it was no longer wanted or needed when it came to matters of health.

However, Dr. Burkhardt stated that the division was mending. She felt that spirituality and health were coming together again. In her opinion, healing was about returning to who we are, and recognizing the spiritual to be our core.

Nursing theorist Jean Watson was on the panel as well. Dr. Watson, after earning a PhD in educational psychology and counseling, joined the faculty at the University of Colorado. As time went on though, she was discouraged because the nursing program was becoming specialized and medicalized in its view of humanity.

Watson’s work to correct this resulted in her “Human Caring Theory” and its Ten Caritas Processes that bring caring, love, and healing together. She felt that the significant cause of healing was love.

When the third panelist, Linda Kohler, supervisor of Christian Science Nursing Activities worldwide, suggested to the other panelists that they were promoting the theory of “love is a power, something required in every sickroom,” both responded, "Absolutely!"

Yes, years ago, when the nurse walked in my front door, I began to feel better. The complete healing came just after she left. Now I realize that the improvement took place, in part, because of this nurse's expectation of good, spirituality, and love.

The compassionate mental state of a nurse can calm a patient. The lessening of fear enables the patient to mentally turn from a mesmeric contemplation of the body and of physical suffering. Because of this mental movement, the pain ceases to dominate, and the patient’s freer thought can begin to accept strength and health.

I hadn’t recognized what a nurse brings to the healing perspective until I had experienced what a selfless, spiritually minded nurse could do. No, it wasn’t Anna Deavere Smith’s Nurse Jackie. In my case, it was a Christian Science nurse.

If you are not aware, Christian Science nurses provide skillful, non-medical physical care for those relying on prayer as a first choice for healing. This care includes bathing, dressing wounds, assistance with mobility, and feeding.

Yes, any nurse, medical or non-medical, can impact healing by an awareness of the patient’s spiritual needs.

So, give a nurse a hug today. But let’s not allow nurses to “corner the market” on compassion. You are I should be filling our hearts with love, joy, and an expectation of good. These valuable qualities promote harmony and health.

– Keith Wommack is a Syndicated Columnist, Christian Science practitioner and teacher, husband, and step-dad. He is a legislative liaison for spiritual healing & Christian Science in Texas. He has been described as a spiritual spur (since every horse needs a little nudge now and then). Keith’s syndicated columns originate at: http://texashealthblog.com/

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I didn't know George. He'd called me out of the blue and asked if I could take him shopping. I reluctantly said, "Yes."

George had heard that I Hugh, a friend of his, to the grocery store just about every Saturday. Hugh was my father’s age or older. He was quite the jokester. I valued my mornings with him. Hugh and I would eat brunch and then do the shopping. We both enjoyed our metaphysical discussions and shared books on spirituality and healing.

George didn't say a word when I picked him up, and not a word all the way to the store. At the supermarket, I followed George around for what seemed hours. I watched him pick up each item, analyze it for a full minute, place it back on the shelf, and then pick up another. My mind had a meltdown. And there was still the silent ride back to George's apartment and the silent and slow carrying of bags into the kitchen.

While carrying the groceries in, I noticed a sheet draped over something in the corner of George's living room.

I broke the silence. "What is that?"

George didn't say a word, but removed the sheet and plugged it in. "It" was an electric xylophone. I had never heard of an electric xylophone, much less seen one. After a few seconds, it started humming softly. George picked up two sticks and started playing -- beautifully.

I was blown away. That's when what I heard made me see.

Before the music, I'd been judging George. I'd pronounced him slow and boring, with nothing to offer the world or me. But once the heavenly melody started, I suddenly saw life -- vibrant, beautiful life, in his hands, his eyes, in his music, and in his smile.

The melody that so gracefully flowed from George shook me. I was humbled. His music forced me to begin using the spiritual ideas Hugh and I would discuss at our Saturday brunches. I saw, first hand, that Spirit's children are always powerful and full of splendor. Each one has a brilliance that can't be seen through a distorted, judgmental or materialistic lens.

I am still learning to look past what, at first, I may perceive about others. Dignity is a foundation stone of life. And it is important appreciate the richness of each individual’s spiritual being. Respect can even lead to healing.

Not long after this experience with George, I was working in the Christian Science Reading Room when a homeless man walked in and told me he had been diagnosed with hepatitis. He exhibited symptoms of the disease. The man mentioned that the hospital could or would not keep him. I asked if he would like to sit and get comfortable. Immediately, he walked into an adjoining room, sat down, and began reading a magazine.

A short time later, a friend came in. This friend and I talked and laughed for a minute. The homeless man ran to where we were and asked how we could be so happy while he was suffering. I told him we believed that God knew him, respected him, and loved him. We did too. And we were confident God would help him. He was infuriated by my response, picked up the Reading Room phone, dialed 911, and asked for an ambulance. He went back to his chair and waited.

Minutes later, an ambulance arrived and he was taken away on a stretcher.

The next morning, as I was opening the Reading Room, the homeless man walked up. He told me that at the hospital he had been reexamined. This time, no trace of the disease could be found. He looked well and happy. He said. “I just had to come back to tell you.”

I’m learning that I can remain fooled by what hides the richness of another’s individuality or I can push past my own materialistic perception of them and start respecting who they really are. If I am able to appreciate their higher nature, we both have the opportunity to be transformed and healed.

– Keith Wommack is a Syndicated Columnist, Christian Science practitioner and teacher, husband, and step-dad. He is a legislative liaison for spiritual healing & Christian Science in Texas. He has been described as a spiritual spur (since every horse needs a little nudge now and then). Keith’s syndicated columns originate at: http://texashealthblog.com/

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Henry Garza, guitarist and vocalist with Los Lonely Boys, wrote the lyrics to their song, Heaven. It was a prayer; a prayer motivated by his families financial and emotional hardships, combined with the death of his first-born son from sudden infant death syndrome. The prayer expressed his deep desire for healing. "I know there's a better place/Than this place I'm livin'/How far is heaven?"

Henry’s heartfelt plea touched hearts worldwide. Because of the strength of the message, the album that included Heaven sold over 2 million copies.

Melodies move us emotionally and change us physically. Hospitals around the United States are utilizing music in a wide variety of ways. Clinical studies now show that music can be used as a therapy in treating depression, schizophrenia, autism, dementia, and as well, substance abuse. Creating or listening to music can alleviate some negative symptoms of mental illness and ease pain.

According to the Mayo Clinic, music improves communication, enhances memory, reduces pain sensation, counteracts depression, promotes activity (i.e. dancing, exercise), encourages feelings of relaxation, and calms and sedates. As well, its been reported that listening to happy, joyous music is good for your heart.

Recognizing that harmonic voices have the ability to inspire and heal, after the success of Heaven, Henry and his brothers, JoJo and Ringo, now make it a habit to sing to individuals who are suffering. Recently, the trio was at the Los Angeles Children’s Hospital.

Both tenderness and power can be expressed in song. These two qualities are paramount in erasing fear and pain.

As I look back at years of performing in a musical group, as well as the last 29 years of healing others with prayer, I see their connection. The tenderness and care of the divine, whether expressed by music or silent prayer, loosens tight grips on fear. The spiritual energy behind both music and a prayerful treatment can ease or erase pain. They enable suffering to be replaced by health.

Doesn’t music hint that we can live as free as a melody? Music does not present a vague or general sense of harmony, but a specific divine expression, tangible to spiritual sense. The reason you react to a song’s beat and melody is because you are spiritual. The divine beauty and energy expressed in music remind you of your spiritual freedom. Melodies and rhythms are slices of heaven being seen and felt right where you are.

Of course, music is not the only way we receive hints of heaven. Accountants witness balance and order, parents reflect unselfed love, and teachers expect and see wisdom and development. Life is worth living because of these divine qualities.

I learned recently that Mary Alice Dayton, a Christian healer in the early 1900s, reportedly suffered a spinal injury that was completely healed while she penned the words to a hymn. Whether or not this was actually how Dayton’s healing took place, this does not discount the fact that, for many years, others have used the strength of the hymn’s message as a prayerful and healing treatment for themselves and others.

Dayton wrote, “God could not make imperfect man/His model infinite;/Unhallowed thought He could not plan,/Love's work and Love must fit. …And man does stand as God's own child,/The image of His love./Let gladness ring from every tongue,/And heaven and earth approve.”

Apparently, betterment can take place because the language of music is a divine message. And, perhaps, the reason you and I love music so much is because we yearn to experience more and more of heaven. Each chord and chorus reveals that heaven is not that far away.

– Keith Wommack is a Syndicated Columnist, Christian Science practitioner and teacher, husband, and step-dad. He is a legislative liaison for spiritual healing & Christian Science in Texas. He has been described as a spiritual spur (since every horse needs a little nudge now and then). Keith’s syndicated columns originate at: http://texashealthblog.com/

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The first started with me asking a Sunday School class of first graders, “What would you say if someone wanted you to pray for them?”

A visitor to the class, a young girl, spoke up and confidently said, “I would tell them that they were safe in God’s pocket.”

A few hours later, my phone rang. A man, suffering with a physical problem, asked me to pray for him. Because the girl’s simple but confident response had so impressed me, and since I understand the cause of most problems to be fear, I was led to say, “You are safe in God’s pocket.”

He began to cry and hung up, without giving his name.

A week later, he called back to report he’d been healed of the physical problem the instant he hung up the phone. He also stated that for the next few days, every time he tried to smoke cigarettes, they tasted terrible. Not only had he been healed of the physical trouble, he’d stopped a long time habit of smoking, as well.

Yes, the girl’s pure trust in God’s constant care inspired a prayer that erased the man’s fear.

The second experience, I was reminded of, took place when I stepped out of a dressing room and into a packed church auditorium. I was suddenly nervous. Anxiously, I stepped over to a chair, sat, and waited for the prelude music to finish.

My fear was puzzling. I had freely performed in a rock band in front of small and large audiences for many years. And although I was about to conduct my first church service of a three-year term, I was prepared. Everything I needed to conduct the service was in place on the podium. There was nothing to worry about.

Then, while the music continued, I recognized that the fear wasn’t mine, but rather waves of sympathy from the audience. Many people have a fear of public speaking and I was mentally sensing this fear.

I affirmed to myself that the fear wasn’t mine, and that I didn’t have to suffer from the thoughts of others.

When the music stopped, I stepped up and began the service. Immediately, the fear vanished. I found that I had the ability to stop being afraid. I could stop being a victim of fear.

What can fear do to you? It seems a lot. Anxiety, fear, and worry are reported to be mentally and physically harmful. Jere Daniel in a Psychology Today column,Learning to Love Growing Old, wrote, “Fear of aging speeds the very decline we dread most. And it ultimately robs our life of any meaning.”

I’m discovering that we experience what we think and that fear seems to be able to negatively touch every part of the body, if we allow it. Because of this, I’ve found it effective to filter my thoughts through spiritual reasoning. Many call this prayer.

As I was listening to the prelude music in the church auditorium, I realized that fear was not a power to be battled with and defeated. The thought, "I am afraid,” was not mine. Not only did I affirm mentally that the fear wasn’t mine, I also knew that no power apart from God could govern my being.

If one glances through the King James Version of the Bible, it is hard not to spot one of the seventy times “Fear not” appears. The second book of Timothy has helped me when I’ve been afraid. It states in part, “God has not given us a spirit of fear. But he has given us a spirit of power and love and self-control.” Is it any wonder that spirituality has been linked to longer life and better health?

Jeff Levin, in his book, God, Faith, and Health: Exploring the Spirituality Healing Connection, writes, “The best study conducted to date on the topic of religious attendance and health found the most amazing results. It showed that the protective effects of frequent participation in church can last a lifetime. … Published in the American Journal of Public Health, [one] study found that frequent religious attenders had greater survival rates — that is, lower mortality — that extendedover a twenty-eight-year period. Frequent religious attendance in 1965 was still reducing the risk of dying in 1994.”

If we are children of God, a fearing soul is not who we really are. Fear keeps us from living freely as spiritual beings. However, fear disappears when we glimpse our identity as the image of the divine.

– Keith Wommack is a Syndicated Columnist, Christian Science practitioner and teacher, husband, and step-dad. He is a legislative liaison for spiritual healing & Christian Science in Texas. He has been described as a spiritual spur (since every horse needs a little nudge now and then). Keith’s syndicated columns originate at: http://texashealthblog.com/

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One of the important responsibilities of parenting is making sure children are physically cared for. Because of this, parents should be helping their children cultivate greater self-control. So suggests the findings from a 32-year study, which showed that children whose self-control improved were more likely to have better health.

There are many ways to improve self-control, but what the study suggests is that the effort could be rewarded with greater well-being.

Self-control allows children to cope with difficult situations. Rather than responding immediately to impulses, they are able to plan, examine alternative actions, and side step what they may later regret. This mental management has been considered an innate human ability. However, many are finding it to be much more, a spiritual faculty – a talent wisely exercisable when coupled with spiritual awareness.

Perhaps the underlying reason self-control can predict health is because evidence points to illness being more of a sensation of mind, than of body. The link between consciousness and physical health is being recognized. Studies show that if one loves more, they will be healthier; if they are forgiving, they can expect to feel physically better; if they just attend religious services, there is a proclivity to live longer. Thought moving, and most importantly, moving away from self or materiality, is causing healthful outcomes.

Stephen Covey, author and authority on leadership, once stated, “You have to decide what your highest priorities are and have the courage -- pleasantly, smilingly, non-apologetically -- to say 'no' to other things. And the way to do that is by having a bigger ‘yes' burning inside.”

I’ve found that true in my own experience; that health follows when we exercise greater self-control.

My parents provided an environment that encouraged self-government, but with an additional dimension. They encouraged me and my siblings to draw on divine wisdom and intelligence and strength as we made decisions and lived our everyday lives. It helped us be much better at discerning what were healthy thoughts and actions, and what weren't.

I believe this was a major factor in why my two brothers and I never missed a single day of school. In fact, we all had perfect attendance 1st through 12th grades. Sure, we experienced minor aches and illness, but nothing lasted long. Our sister rarely missed a school day, as well.

We were typical kids and did typical childish things, yet smarter, healthier decisions and actions followed our maturing sense of life.

Research between consciousness and health has been conducted longer than most are aware, centuries in fact. Mary Baker Eddy, the discoverer of Christian Science, the spiritual and Christian system of healing that my family has utilized as a first choice for the past 4 generations, performed experiments in this area in the late 1800s. As well, she saw the importance of childhood development and its link to mental and physical health. She wrote: "Children should obey their parents; insubordination is an evil, blighting the buddings of self-government. Parents should teach their children at the earliest possible period the truths of health and holiness. Children are more tractable than adults, and learn more readily to love the simple verities that will make them happy and good."

If more parents helped their children cultivate greater self-control, perhaps the findings from the 32-year study would ring true in their homes. What parent wouldn't want to give their child a chance for a better life with better health? And what is good for children might also be good for us all.

– Keith Wommack is a Syndicated Columnist, Christian Science practitioner and teacher, husband, and step-dad. He is a legislative liaison for spirituality and Christian Science in Texas. He has been described as a spiritual spur (since every horse needs a little nudge now and then). Keith’s syndicated columns originate at:  healthy th(ink)ing  

Life line

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You enter the room of a gravely ill friend where hope has vanished. Your thoughts weigh heavy. The family expects a quick passing. Doctors have proclaimed there are but a few hours left. The room is dark, both mentally and physically. You feel helpless.

But, what if you could do something, something that made a difference?

Two last-minute healing experiences, I am aware of, show it’s possible for you to be of help. The first involves Joseph Mann and a thirty-two-caliber revolver. The second details Mary Belt’s time at the Clara Barton Hospital in Los Angeles. While I briefly describe these accounts, for a point of emphasis, I am suggesting that you are the healer.

Joseph Mann was accidentally shot with the thirty-two-caliber revolver. 4 doctors concluded that nothing could be done to save him. As his body was growing cold and death perspiration was on his forehead, you were allowed to enter his home.

Mann later stated, "Within about fifteen minutes after you had been admitted into our house I began suddenly to grow warm again under your treatment. My breath was again revived and normal. I became conscious, opened my eyes and knew I should not die, but would live." And, he was right.

Mary Belt was healed of cancer, while at the Clara Barton Hospital. A nurse mentioned that Belt was resting easier and not suffering so much pain soon after she was receiving your treatment. But then one evening she appeared to have passed on. The nurse was unable to locate a pulse. Every symptom indicated a passing. The head nurse recorded Belt’s death.

Then you stepped in front of Mary Belt and called her by name. The second time you called, she opened her eyes and breathed a natural breath. Within a few days she left the hospital, healed. Belt stated, "When I awoke from that condition, I felt and knew that I was healed."

Both Mann and Belt awoke and knew that they were well. Who convinced them? You did. Ok, actually the real healers in these cases were a concerned friend of Mann’s and Belt’s brother. However, it could have been you, couldn't it?

How could you have accomplished this?

In the health care arena, there is an explosion of interest in spirituality’s ability to make physical changes. Harold Koenig, MD, associate professor of medicine and psychiatry at Duke University, is a senior author of Handbook of Religion and Health, a comprehensive examination of the impact of spirituality on well-being. The book details nearly 1,200 studies that explore the effects of prayer. Koenig states, “Traditional religious beliefs have a variety of effects on personal health.”

If prayer can help in times of physical crisis, how does it accomplish this? Perhaps, prayer heals because our bodies are more thought-based, than matter-based.

Physician and spiritual teacher, Deepak Chopra, has written, “There is something more complex in the cosmos than the human brain: the process that makes the brain work. This process involves consciousness. It is our mind that is using the brain, not the other way around. I would argue that the brain is a creation of the mind, a physical projection of consciousness.”

There is a growing recognition that not only is the brain “a creation of the mind,” but, as well, our entire bodies. And if the entire body is actually thought manifest, then a change of thought is needed for healing. This change of thought is accomplished not simply with wishful thinking, but rather with a growing awareness of your divine consciousness, God, and an increasing confidence in your potential to express God’s ability to save.

Perhaps, a statement by Mary Baker Eddy, a Christian healer in the early 1900s, can shed light on this type of mental treatment. She wrote, "The healer begins by mental argument. He mentally says, 'You are well, and you know it;' and he supports this silent mental force by audible explanation, attestation, and precedent. His mental and oral arguments aim to refute the sick man's thoughts, words, and actions, in certain directions, and turn them into channels of Truth. He persists in this course until the patient's mind yields, and the harmonious thought has the full control over this mind on the point at issue. The end is attained, and the patient says and feels, ‘I am well, and I know it.’"

The prayerful treatment of a friend and brother awoke Mann and Belt. However, what empowered them to do so? Can it empower you?

Again, if changing a person's belief can change their body, this activity must be animated by something stronger than wishful thinking or human will. This something is the divine consciousness or Truth. And while acquiring a deeper spiritual understanding that builds spiritual conviction, to the degree that you express humility and selflessness, to that degree you will also manifest the divine ability to heal. Mary Baker Eddy explained, “Tumors, ulcers, tubercles, inflammation, pain, deformed joints, are waking dream-shadows, dark images of mortal thought, which flee before the light of Truth.”

The Bible reveals that Jesus was a master awakener. A study of his words and works helps grow healthy convictions. Although spiritual awakenings lead to physical health, and this is wonderful, it is not the end goal. The awakening should cause us to recognize, in some measure, the absolute spiritual sense of existence.

You may not accomplish dramatic cures at first, with your prayerful presence, but your desire and growing spiritual maturity can help bring hope and peace to many.

– Keith Wommack is a Syndicated Columnist, Christian Science practitioner and teacher, husband, and step-dad. He is a legislative liaison for spiritual healing & Christian Science in Texas. He has been described as a spiritual spur (since every horse needs a little nudge now and then). Keith’s syndicated columns/blogs originate at: http://texashealthblog.com/

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It was 3:30 in the afternoon. A squirrel rested, unaware he was about to be an afternoon snack for an approaching owl. So, I started my rent car, which startled the squirrel, and he dashed to safety.

My actions saved one, yet, irritated another. Then I wondered about the actions that had landed the young people, I was about to meet, into trouble. What had caused them to act or react?

I was sitting in my rental in the parking lot of a baseball field near the Barbara Culver Juvenile Detention Center in Midland, Texas. I had arrived early and decided to take thirty minutes to collect my thoughts, a little spiritual reasoning.

I was told I would be at the Center for about an hour. Yet, I had no clue about how many people I’d be speaking with. Would it be two or three? Maybe it would be 4 of us, around a table.

I pulled into the center’s lot, parked, and announced myself into the speaker. The door opened and I walked through the metal detector.

A guard brought me to the classroom where I’d be speaking. I asked, “How many will be here?” He said, “Thirty-one.” I thought, “Wow, you have trouble talking to your own two kids.”

At the front of the empty classroom I paused to get my bearings. My prayer went something like this, “Well, here I am. Thank you for leading me, animating me. Show me how I express your wisdom. Keep reminding me that each one that comes into this room belongs to you. Please, put your words in my mouth.”

Then the procession began. Thirty-one of them, hands behind their backs, slowly made their way to rows of chairs. Thirty-one orange jumpsuits. 4 young women. Twenty-seven young men. All in their teens, except two boys, age ten.

Thirty-one. Not one smile. Not one hello. Their body language screamed, “Disdain.”

I was introduced: “This is Mr. Wommack. He’s here to talk with you. Listen up. If you make a noise, disrupt, slump in your seats, or are in any way are out of order you will lose all privileges the rest of the day.” I felt like the vulnerable squirrel.

A quick battle took place in my thought. “What chance do you have in helping these kids? They’re just losers. You’ll never get their attention, don’t kid yourself!”

An angel message took over, “Are they really losers? Haven’t you been learning that each child of Life, God, is really spiritual, and spiritually dynamic? Each expresses the dignity of Life?”

I began to speak, trying to look past the orange. I told them about myself. Then I was lead to challenge them. I challenged them to be a thermostat, not a thermometer. A thermometer just rises or falls according to what is happening around it. However, a thermostat, on the other hand, regulates.

I challenged them to be healers, spiritual healers. I explained that by what they will learn in their spiritual journeys they could be regulators, thermostats. They could turn situations higher, holier. Everyone they will meet would be happier and healthier because of having met them.

I told them that Peter, one of Jesus’ followers, healed others when his shadow fell on them. Just so, the shadow or powerful mental weight of their growing spiritual maturity and understanding would help others. The more weight they put into the side of good, the more good they will do. They will use laws, spiritual laws, which heal minds and bodies.

The next hour and a half flew by. What started out as 31 orange jumpsuits, turned into 31 precious friends. They smiled, they laughed, and they clapped.

At the end, a young man asked, “What is it like to come in here and change someone’s life?” This dear one, when he first walked in, looked like the most defiant and difficult. The way he sat, arms folded and scowl on his face, I thought he’d by the last to ask such a question. Yet, what a question!

The smile on his face and tenderness in his eyes told me that he was taking up my challenge.

As I drove away from the Center, I was filled with a spiritual sense of life. I felt and understood that each life was a blessing. Life doesn’t have to be vulnerable or confined. Life is about new beginnings. We have choices.

– Keith Wommack is a Syndicated Columnist, Christian Science practitioner and teacher, husband, and step-dad. He is a legislative liaison for spiritual healing & Christian Science in Texas. He has been described as a spiritual spur (since every horse needs a little nudge now and then). Keith’s syndicated columns/blogs originate at: http://texashealthblog.com/ 

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When I got married, I became an instant dad to my wife’s two sons. One day just before we were married, Joanne and the boys came to visit me. Jarrod, the older, was 4. He sat on my lap, and we played with his teddy bear. I would take his teddy and pretend he was talking to Jarrod. When it was Jarrod’s turn to make the bear “Talk,” he swung it and hit me hard across the face.

He didn’t mean to be violent, but got carried away with the game. However, when he saw the blow had shocked me, he quickly put both hands up in a defensive position, expecting me to hit back.

I was stunned more by his fear than by being hit. At that moment, I realized what it was going to take to be a father figure – forgiveness and love.

I slowly reached out, took both his shoulders, pulled him close, and kissed him on the cheek. I can still remember the amazed look on his face. He relaxed, and we started playing again.

It would’ve been easy to try to “teach him a lesson.” But both of us needed an instruction in love being lived. And we needed to learn, most of all, that love matters.

I believe most of us are inherently aware that love is needed for us to maintain a true quality of life experience. Love and forgiveness, given and received, make us feel mentally and emotionally better. Yet, how many of us know that love has an impact on physical well-being?

The World Heart Federation reports that love helps us to preserve a good mental attitude. At the same time it enhances physical health because of its positive effect on immune systems and the heart.

Dr. Dean Ornish, president and founder of the nonprofit Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, and Clinical Professor of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco, in his book, Love and Survival, shares many research studies suggesting that love is a real healer. For example:

- At Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, researchers asked 10,000 married men with no history of chest pains (angina), "Does your wife show you her love?" The men who responded yes were found to experience significantly less angina during the next five years than husbands answering no.

- Yale scientists questioned 119 men and 40 women before they submitted to angiography tests. Those who reported feeling most loved and supported were found to have quite noticeably fewer blockages in the arteries.

- In 1952, Harvard doctors choose randomly 126 healthy male students. The students were asked to describe the nature of their relationships with their parents. In 1987, medical records were acquired for the subjects, who were in their 50s. More than 90 percent of those who didn't sense warm relationships with their mothers had been diagnosed with serious illnesses, compared with 45 percent of those who cited loving relationships with their mothers. For fathers, the respective numbers were 82 and 50 percent.

As we can see, love apparently provides health benefits. Yet, what kind of love makes the biggest difference in our health?

Passionate love and compassionate love are two different forms of love. Passionate love is an absorption in another, an intense emotional experience, usually associated with new romance. Normally, it doesn’t last long. Compassionate love is a deep caring and concern for another that is more prolonged, yet often declines with passing years. It is more of a low-keyed human emotion.

However, I and many others have experienced a love that sustains itself across years. This is a divine Love that produces consistent mental and physical stability as well as improvements. The less one thinks about himself, the more he or she can tap into this Love and express it more fully. And the more this is done, the more this person is able to heal himself and others.

Mary Baker Eddy, an early Christian explorer in the realm of mental, spiritual, and physical healing, wrote, “That individual is the best healer who asserts himself the least, and thus becomes a transparency for the divine [Love], who is the only physician.”

A friend of mine, Ken, shared with me how he experienced divine Love in action. He told me that eleven years ago, a growth developed both in and outside of one of his lower eyelids.

At first, he was afraid. The condition was never diagnosed, yet doctors had detected similar growths on his grandmother and had determined they were cancerous. Ken called a friend who was a Christian Science practitioner to pray with him about this problem.

At times, he caught himself wondering whether God was a God of wrath, punishing him for something he might have done. But as he continued to pray, Ken could tell the healing was taking place even though the growth seemed to increase in size. The real growth that was taking place was a solid realization that God is Love and loved His child unconditionally.

Every area of his life was affected by Love’s healthy touch. His attitude changed. He expressed more compassion and kindness.

During this time, Ken also became aware of a deep-rooted fear that was attacking the very essence of a desire he had to serve God in whatever way God wanted him to. And this fear was simply that if the problem continued, it could prevent him from fulfilling this desire.

He suddenly realized this fear was a ridiculous lie. Ken affirmed that he lived to express God’s love. He felt peaceful and was aware of the love that never quits. God’s goodness and boundless love for all His creation was more real to him than the fear. Ken knew he was healed.

Two weeks later, the growth fell off his eyelid without leaving a trace or scar.

Yes, statistics reveal, but even more importantly, minds and bodies show that love and forgiveness, given and received, make us feel mentally, emotionally, and physically better.

Our quality of life will be consistently improved as we begin to understand that the love behind our love is divine. This is why love matters.

– Keith Wommack is a Syndicated Columnist, Christian Science practitioner and teacher, husband, and step-dad. He is a legislative liaison for spiritual healing & Christian Science in Texas. He has been described as a spiritual spur (since every horse needs a little nudge now and then). Keith’s syndicated columns/blogs originate at: http://texashealthblog.com/