Testimony of Healing January 24, 2000 Issue

Prayer heals back pain

David Alan Grier

While visiting my sister-in-law's farm in the summer of 1998, I was helping to clean up a garbage dump next to her property. I injured my back when, after picking up several modest-size objects, I attempted to move an old truck tire that proved to be stuck in the ground far more firmly than it appeared. Because of the pain in my lower back, I was unable to continue working. indeed, it was difficult even to walk to the house and change clothes. When I arrived in the house, I settled myself as comfortably as I could, called a Christian Science practitioner for treatment, and also began to pray for myself.

In my prayer, I attempted to gain a spiritual understanding both of myself and of the activity I had recently undertaken. I prayed to understand that my back is not a material structure, but is an expression of God's spiritual creation. I also prayed to understand how God's world was clean, not so impossibly polluted that it could injure me as I attempted to pick up garbage.

As I prayed, I was helped by a quotation from Science and Health: "If you wish to know the spiritual fact, you can discover it by reversing the material fable, be the fable pro or con, — be it in accord with your preconceptions or utterly contrary to them" (p. 129). In particular, I found it helpful to realize that my strength and my comfort came not from material structures that were vulnerable, but from the one God, who is perfect and eternal and free from accidents. I also found it useful to understand that God had inspired us to clean up the dump — not fear of pollution, anger at whoever had dumped the garbage, or even a selfish desire to have a pretty view.

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