Testimony of Healing March 18, 2002 Issue

Angry at the jellyfish?

John C. Ranges

I live in Florida, and I like surfing, boogie boarding, and skim boarding in the ocean.

One day while skim boarding, I ran into a jellyfish called a Portuguese man-of-war. I stepped on it while running for my board, and the tentacles wrapped around my foot. It hurt real bad, and I had to stop to shake it off. It felt like my foot was on fire. I wanted to go home. After picking up my board, I walked over to my dad and told him what had happened. We packed up everything and went to the car.

On the way home we prayed. First we said "the scientific statement of being" together out loud. It starts this way: "There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter" (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 468). Then we said the 91st Psalm from the Bible together. The words we said were comforting to me, but my foot still hurt. And I was angry at the jellyfish. I asked my dad why God made those evil creatures. He told me about how God created everything, and it was good (see Gen. 1:31). I needed to love all of God's creatures because my hatred was not helping me pray. It was hard, but I tried to see the jellyfish as God's creatures and to love them.

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