Testimony of Healing April 23, 2012 Issue

Face and shoulder healed after a fall

Chris Coombs

A little over three years ago, I was elected as a Reader in my branch church. Several months later, I was on my way home from practicing for the Sunday service and stopped at a local fresh produce vendor on the road. I was feeling blessed with a wonderful sense of God’s ever-present Love. But I wasn’t watching what I was doing very carefully, and tripped on the trailer tongue with my hands full of produce. I hit the pavement with considerable force, with nothing to break the fall but my shoulder and head.

The vendor helped me get up, gave me some paper towels to stanch the bleeding, and offered to call an ambulance. My shoulder was painful and immobile. There were cuts and scrapes on my face, and a small stone had been driven into my gum. Yet my “prayed-up” state of mind left no room for doubt or fear. I thanked the vendor, we gathered up the produce, and I continued home, one hand holding the towel and the other driving.

On my way home I prayed actively and urgently—or as Mary Baker Eddy put it, “importu-
nately” (see Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 127). The joy and the love of Love that I’d felt at practice was present and strong. I affirmed that there could be no accident involving my real individuality and identity as God’s perfect idea, held always in His love and Her nurturing care. Healings I’d experienced in the past flooded in like angels, encouraging me to trust God’s ever-presence. There never was, never could be, an instant when God’s thoughts streaming to me would be silent, or that Mother-God would look away for a nanosecond.