There is something beyond entertaining about watching expert athletes defy conventional limits to accomplish what looks impossible. My husband and I have had the privilege of witnessing, first hand, remarkable achievements in extreme sports from the Sydney and Salt Lake Olympics to the Indianapolis 500 and the Cheyenne Rodeo, which has increased our admiration for these displays of breathtaking mastery. Our adult children tease me about the irony of my enthusiasm for the X Games or NASCAR or the Tour de France, because I’m the least athletic person in the family by a long shot! Perhaps our appreciation for those who do the remarkable is even greater when it doesn’t seem possible to us.

Every one of us gains tremendous satisfaction in overcoming limitations, don’t we? Whether it’s physical, mental, academic, professional, or artistic achievement, nothing quite matches the gratification of mastering a challenge, overcoming a difficulty, accomplishing something we didn’t think we could do.

I had a rare opportunity to learn what’s achievable when I was invited to participate in an off-road Ranger Rover event. Each individual driver would be coached by pros through wild and dangerous natural obstacles in a rugged, forested mountainous region.

At one point, my coach stood outside the car and gave explicit, point-by-point, instructions for maneuvering one front wheel at a time over a huge fallen log, after which came a sharp turn to avoid an imposing tree. I just knew it was impossible for me—way beyond my skill level! But he assured me that I could do it if I applied his intelligent analysis, careful planning, and patient discipline. 

I watched as the driver in front panicked, then rushed in confusion and ran smack into the tree. Not encouraging for a novice to off-road adventure, to say the least!

Following the guidance of my coach, I approached the log slowly, turned precisely as instructed, and crawled over it one wheel at a time, backing off at just the right moment to radically turn again, avoiding the obstacle of the tree. I felt jubilation and amazement as I came to a stop, successfully on the other side!

Then came the deep water course. I parked, poised above a serious stream, listening intensely to the coach’s instructions for how much momentum to apply on approach and at which point midstream to be sure I gained added traction. My heart pounded. After all, flooding our car, losing control, or being swamped wasn’t my idea of an adventure!

Again, carefully following instructions I splashed into the stream and drove through the current successfully. I was elated when I reached the other side.

As a student of Christian Science, this off-road event seemed something of a parable—a lesson in how our listening to divine guidance gets us successfully from one point to the other, even though the obstacles seem impossible. Daily prayer and study of the Bible and Mary Baker Eddy’s writings have done just that for me and my family countless times. Here’s one example.

My husband and I were traveling in Europe when I experienced an extreme heart episode in the middle of a French airport. I’d never experienced anything like it before and was terribly frightened. I was confronted with the temptation to think, “Why, I’m still a young mother with four little ones at home! How will I get through raising our children and continue a full, active life if I have to deal with this?” 

But I turned Godward, knowing our trust in God’s care had never failed. Like driving over and through the extreme obstacles by turning from the physical impression of impossibility, I would follow divine inspiration and get successfully to the other side of this problem. 

No one around us was aware of the difficulty, so I asked my husband to quietly pray with me, giving Christian Science treatment. I remembered this from a favorite psalm: “Create in me a clean heart, O God; and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from thy presence; and take not thy holy spirit from me. Restore unto me the joy of thy salvation; and uphold me with thy free spirit” (Ps. 51:10–12). 

We affirmed that the actual life of man, God’s child, is the perpetual expression of Life, God’s uninterrupted outpouring. Any impression of disruption of or impediment to that perpetual expression of Life is a lie of material sense. We knew from our study of Christian Science that “the testimony of the corporeal senses cannot inform us what is real and what is delusive, but the revelations of Christian Science unlock the treasures of Truth” ( Science and Health, p. 70). 

I held tenaciously to the spiritual facts of God’s love and all-power, replacing the material lies of insurmountable fear, weakness, and pain. 

Through consistent prayer and study, I gradually became convinced that physical symptoms do not tell us anything legitimate.

Just as the off-road driving coach gave me the benefit of his experience, I had an instructive example for this challenge, too, in my mother-in-law. She had a dramatic healing of a heart problem through prayer before I knew her. She told us how her prayerful work with a practitioner revealed that she suffered from a severe sense of being squeezed and overwhelmed by pressures to make her troubled marriage work, keep her contentious family happy, serve her branch church in every way possible, carry out her work as a conscientious professional, and be everything to everyone. My mother-in-law was receptive to this recognition and she “took to heart” the spiritual definition of heart from the Glossary of Science and Health: “Heart. Mortal feelings, motives, affections, joys, and sorrows” (p. 587). 

She obediently worked to eliminate her well-meaning yet personal sense of responsibility for everyone else’s welfare and see them properly entrusted to God, their Father-Mother as well as hers. She restored her sense of “a clean heart,” cleared of personal sense, and renewed “a right spirit,” understanding that God governed all the dear ones and details of her life. The heart problem vanished. 

Encouraged by my mother-in-law’s healing, I continued to give myself Christian Science treatment, though the problem recurred with various, often alarming symptoms followed by extreme weakness. Frequently, when my husband awoke in the middle of the night, he checked to see if I was still breathing and often stayed awake praying for me. 

This went on for a long period. Through consistent prayer and study, I gradually became convinced that physical symptoms do not tell us anything legitimate. In order for symptoms to communicate something, I reasoned, they had to be part of a structured, whole system. Structured, whole systems, if authentic, have to be intelligently devised. If Mind didn’t devise the structure or system, the symptom (as an indicator of some system) is a false impression, no matter how graphic and impressive it seems to the senses.

So, not only did I declare that God was my Life when these episodes occurred, but with divine help, I learned to be unimpressed by them. Instead, I refused to give consent to the vivid picture of symptoms, which were obstacles to healing. This became a daily practice. I’m happy to report that eventually the symptoms ceased to even frighten me and faded away entirely.

You can imagine how joyfully I’ve hiked with energetic freedom in Yosemite, the Rockies, the Tetons, and white-water rafted in Colorado—and why I especially enjoy watching extreme athletes accomplish what seems impossible.

I treasure a poem written by Peter Henniker-Heaton, published many years ago in this very magazine (February 28, 1948, p. 358). I think of my mother-in-law’s and my own healings, getting us from fear to victory, limitation to freedom, illustrating what is possible for every one of God’s cherished, empowered children. 

 Change of Heart

 The heart of Love is always strong and sound;
 God knows no other heart.
 Forever equal to the hour’s demand,
 it can sustain no shock, can take no hurt.

 The heart of Love is warm and deeply tender,
 not hard or cold or cruel;
 no weary disillusion dims the splendor
 that lights the shining heart of all things real.

 The heart of Love is never breached or broken;
 at ease, at peace, at one,
 alone, but never lonely or forsaken,
 the heart of Love is satisfied with man.

 The false, material, personal sense of heart,
 as dust to dust, withdraws.
 Healed and released, we see the lie depart
 with all its empty griefs, its shadowy joys.

 There are not many hearts, but one heart only—
 quick, eager, glad, alive,
 forever acting strongly and serenely,
 inviolate, single, whole—the heart of Love.