Article July 5, 2010 Issue

A PROMISE OF PROGRESS

BY T. MICHAEL FISH

THROUGHOUT MY LIFE I generally saw myself as a good person, trying to love my neighbor as myself. I was confident that I was on the right track in practicing Christian Science. But when I was faced with a physical challenge a little over five years ago, I began to gain a much deeper sense of what it really means to love my neighbor. The experience completely refreshed my conception of how I was viewing others—and myself—and has served as a landmark experience of spiritual growth for me.

When a pain developed in one of my arms, I did not think much of it at first. I prayed to know that God had never created pain, and because God, good, is the only cause, pain could have no cause and therefore no effect upon man. I remembered overcoming pain in one arm 15 years earlier through spiritual prayer, and I expected this issue would be healed quickly as any physical or mental ailments in the past were always effectively healed through fervent prayer.

Yet instead of a quick and whole healing, which I was used to seeing, I found that the pain persisted over a period of several months. It was the severest when I would go to bed at night, and I could only sleep if I lay flat on my back without moving.