FREEDOM FROM THE EFFECTS OF A FALL

BRYAN HALL

One autumn morning a few years ago, I was clearing leaves from a gutter on the roof of our home. Suddenly the ladder I was standing on slipped at ground level, and I fell about 20 feet to the ground. My wife was not at home at the time, but after about ten minutes of lying flat on my back, and reaching out to God in prayer, I was able to get up and slowly walk into the house.

I headed for a comfortable chair, continuing to pray with the spiritual truths that I knew would show me my present well-being under God's care. I had learned in Christian Science that it was essential to face and resist fearful thoughts—which only reinforce the opposite of our spiritual nature and condition. This I did vigorously.

When my wife arrived home, she called a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. Over the next several days, I felt the wonderful effects of the practitioner's prayers. Although I was unable to lie down, and sat upright for three days and nights, getting up to walk only when there was a need, I made the most of this opportunity to study diligently the Bible and Science and Health.

One passage I found particularly helpful to consider: "When speaking of God's children, not the children of men, Jesus said, 'The kingdom of God is within you;' that is, Truth and Love reign in the real man, showing that man in God's image is unfallen and eternal" (Science and Health, p. 476). It was a wonderful comfort to acknowledge that "the kingdom of God"—the power and presence of His government—was within me, supreme and unopposed.

I saw that because my identity was forever safe in God, who is divine Mind, accidents and their effects could only seem real in the dreamlike state of a separate or mortal mind, as Christian Science teaches. To wake up from this dream on the basis that it had no spiritual validity would mean finding myself untouched by the incident or any effects from it.

And this progressively proved to be the case. The more I stopped believing in the possibility that I could fall out of God's care, the more my condition improved. Within a few days, I was back on my own two feet, grateful and rejoicing. Over the next couple of weeks, I continued to pray persistently to see my body, not as physical anatomy, but as my spiritual individuality—the likeness of God—as the Bible teaches in Genesis 1:26, 27. Daily, sometimes hourly, I mentally rejected the remaining evidence of pain, stiffness, and other abnormal functioning. In studying Mrs. Eddy's statement, "Mind is the source of all movement, and there is no inertia to retard or check its perpetual and harmonious action" (Science and Health, p. 283), the words perpetual and harmonious really struck home. I saw that divine Mind doesn't depend on material structure, but is the spiritual fount of everything that is good. It is perpetual, and its outcome is harmony in man and the universe.

The healing was soon complete, and I've remained free of any aftereffects.

BRYAN HALL
BOURNE END, BUCKINGHAMSHIRE, ENGLAND

Send a comment to the editors

NEXT IN THIS ISSUE

Testimony of Healing

MY PRAYER OF THANKSGIVING

November 19, 2007

Contents

We'd love to hear from you!

Easily submit your testimonies, articles, and poems online.

Submit