Choose the only real remedy

Quinci Coates

One cool, damp morning I was running the mile course at school with the team. Just as I was about to get a good finishing time, I had a sudden pain in my calf. The pain seemed very real, and I was about to stop but thought, "This can be healed." I kept running, knowing that I was in God's care and that there was no mortal mind to cause a bad effect on me. As the pain worsened, I started saying aloud, "No! This isn't true about me!" I remembered something Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health: "... There is no pain in Truth, and no truth in pain; no nerve in Mind, and no mind in nerve; no matter in Mind, and no mind in matter; no matter in Life, and no life in matter; no matter in good, and no good in matter."^{Science and Health, p. 113.} Instantly I was running freely and completed the course. ... However, these pains began to happen frequently. A friend of mine who is a physical education instructor said they were muscle cramps.

One day while I was swimming, the pain flared up again —only worse. I got out of the pool filled with fear. The pain was so bad I didn't even think about God or Christian Science! I just wanted the pain to go away; so I decided to try a material treatment. My physical education teacher friend told me to massage it very hard. But doing this only made the pain worse. I was helped to my room where I lay down, wishing the pain would go away.

Then I began thinking about what I had just done. In choosing the material remedy—even as simple a remedy as massage—I was not relying on God, the only real remedy. Turning to a material remedy shows we believe that we are mortal, material creatures and that therefore we must do something to matter to relieve pain. But relying on God lifts us to understand that we are spiritual right now—God's perfect likeness. The better we understand this, the less power we give matter and the less fear or pain we experience. ...

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