Article July 28, 2003 Issue

Diving— to new heights

By Clara Ransom

During spring break of my sophomore year at the University of Michigan, I had a week off from my full load of college classes. But I was at the university on a diving scholarship, so there was definitely no break scheduled for us — the divers and swimmers. We had a rigorous training program all the time, and with competitions on the horizon — the Big Ten events and College Nationals, as well as dual meets — we should have been kicking our practice time up a notch or two. We usually practiced about an hour and a half each morning and two more hours in the afternoon. But this particular spring break, things were not "as usual."

One after another, members of the swimming and diving teams were falling sick. Several were diagnosed with mononucleosis and were spending spring break resting in bed instead of training in the pool. Then I got sick, too. I had flu symptoms — something I'd had before — but I also had the same difficulties as the others and figured it must be "mono." Fatigue kept me bed-bound, so I wasn't even able to get up to fix something to eat.

Unlike the others, I hadn't chosen to go to the health center for diagnosis, but had chosen instead to rely on the kind of healing I had grown up with — Christian Science prayer and treatment. Spiritual healing had served me well in the past. I had gone to Sunday School all the time I was growing up and was part of a family that aspired to follow the spiritual way of life described in Science and Health, a book by Mary Baker Eddy about the nature of God and His creation. The book includes guidelines for practicing Christian healing. We had always read and studied the Bible and Science and Health and had confidence in God's power to help us, no matter what kind of difficulty we might be facing.