Course correction

I broke my thumb playing soccer. I know, I know: You’re not supposed to play soccer with your hands. But somehow, my hand got caught between another player and me. I thought the injury was just another jammed finger, and figured I would have a sore thumb for the rest of the day. I would later realize that this line of reasoning is where I went wrong.

It was my second year playing varsity soccer, and I loved being part of the team. We were about a month into our season when this incident happened. Quickly, I realized this was more than a jammed finger; my thumb was broken. The injury was holding me back, not just from soccer, but also from a class rafting trip in Idaho. I had been looking forward to this trip for a while, and now I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to go. 

I ended up getting a brace for my thumb, which raised a lot of questions. What happened? How’d you do that? How long until you get it off? The questions went on and on. I felt stuck on the image of the injury and was having a hard time addressing the situation through prayer, as I usually do whenever I have a problem. 

School was tough, too. Writing simple sentences was a challenge. Typing was even harder. And worst of all, I ended up missing my class trip. Something needed to happen.

Holding on to powerful spiritual facts about God and man, I found I could now pray effectively and was healed.

I had a change of thought. It hit me that all this time I’d been so focused on this image of an injury that I’d forgotten a basic spiritual fact: Because God is Spirit, His creation, man, including me, must be spiritual. And because I am spiritual, everything about me is intact, whole, uninjured. 

In a sermon titled Christian Healing, Mary Baker Eddy wrote, “Contending for the reality of what should disappear is like furnishing fuel for the flames” (p. 9). This quote sums up my shift in thought. As soon as I realized I was focusing on a lie about my identity—that I could be broken or hurt—I saw where I’d gone wrong: I needed to pray with the truth of the way God created me. Then I was able to think differently. Holding on to powerful spiritual facts about God and man, I found I could now pray effectively and was healed.

I was scheduled to have the brace on for three to four weeks, but within five days, my thumb was completely fine and I no longer needed the brace. I was told that I would have less mobility in my thumb, but my thumb is just as flexible as it was before the injury. Oh yeah, and soccer? I didn’t miss a single game or a practice for the rest of the season.

This healing was a blessing from God. Because I couldn’t go on the rafting trip, I was assigned a four-page essay. Doesn’t sound like a blessing, right? Well, it was. The paper was about overcoming obstacles, and I discovered many new things about beating adversity that I hadn’t known before.

Though I initially accepted this injury and struggled for a few days as a result, things immediately changed when I began to see myself spiritually and to recognize my spiritual being. I am very grateful for this healing and for the fact that I have Christian Science in my life.

_{Originally appeared online in the teen column: Your Healings - December 21, 2016}

Lisa Andrews—Staff