Article January 20, 1997 Issue

Preparation for healing

Mark Raffles

The dusk of a midwestern winter day is just right for a warm fire, and I was about to put on my boots and jacket to go out to chop some firewood. But right before I went outside, I had a clear sense that I needed to stop and devote a few moments to prayer.

People pray in many different ways. I approach prayer as communing with God, mentally letting go of the push of human will and listening for divine direction. The Bible describes man as made in God's image and likeness, and prayer is the active affirmation of the protection, power, and provision we rightly have because our true nature is spiritual. Through such prayer, our thought is aligned more closely with God, with Truth.

After praying along these lines a few minutes, I went out to get the wood ready. Holding a particularly tough log in one hand, I tried to strike the end just hard enough to get the split started. The axhead must have hit a knot, because it veered into my other hand, striking it between the thumb and index finger. While I was startled, my first thought was that I was all right, that I was completely in God's care. The evidence of a severely injured hand seemed very real, but I held fast to the fact that I did not have to accept this as the reality. The claim that an injury could occur was the product of a mentality, wholly false, that proclaims matter as the essence of man. The truth of the situation was that since God, Mind, is Spirit and the source of my being, my true nature must be spiritual and good. I could not, in reality, be the victim of a harmful event.

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