The Third Commandment -- nothing to sneeze at

Every year in my early childhood, at summer's end as school started, I got hit with hay fever. It made me miserable. About nine years ago, I woke up one September morning with all the symptoms I had learned to hate.

I went out to run some errands. As I drove along, I silently asked God for help. What did I need to do to stop these annual attacks?

The answer came in the form of a Bible verse that at first seemed unrelated: the Third Commandment, the one that says, "Thou shalt not take the name of the Lord thy God in vain" (Exodus 20:7).

At first I thought, "Okay, what does that mean about this situation?" I'd always thought about it as meaning "don't swear." But I don't swear or use profanity (well, at least I try not to). But again this commandment came into my thought. "All right, I guess I'd better think about this some more." So I did.

Two words then stood out to me as significant: "name" and "vain." I have heard that in many societies (including the Old Testament Hebrew one), a person's name signifies who the person is. And you would only change your name when you've had a distinct change in your character or position in life.

So, I reasoned, maybe "name" meant much more than a word or a label. Maybe it also indicated identity -- God's identity in this case. And mine too, as I believe I am one of God's creations, and, therefore have only qualities that are divine characteristics.

How could I be taking that name, identity, in "vain?" Taking something in vain could be thought of as misusing something, disrespecting it, or otherwise not acknowledging its true worth.

This commandment began to mean more to me than just not using God's name in a bad or insulting manner. It also meant not thinking of divine creation in a wrong way -- as sick or allergic or prone to attacks. I realized I had a choice: to think of myself as a susceptible and miserable physical thing, or as a healthy, peaceful spiritual being. The first choice would dishonor the perfect creator and creation, something I didn't want to do. So, I chose the second option.

I spent the rest of the day identifying myself as a non-allergic, healthy child of God. This allowed a stream of uplifting ideas to flow into my thought. The next morning, all of the symptoms were gone. And, when they have tried to return in the years since, they've been gone within a day.

• Check out this paragraph in Science and Health, too, and helped me with this healing. It really speaks to this idea! Page 175:9:
  
  "What an abuse of natural beauty to say that a rose, the smile of God, can produce suffering! The joy of its presence, its beauty and fragrance, should uplift the thought, and dissuade any sense of fear or fever. It is profane to fancy that the perfume of clover and the breath of new-mown hay can cause glandular inflammation, sneezing, and nasal pangs."