As I was about to descend a flight of cement steps, my foot caught, sending me unceremoniously rolling the whole way to the bottom. My daughter and a church friend who were with me immediately expressed concern and offered help. I asked just for a little time to sit quietly, and turned instantly to prayer. The first words that came to thought were from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “Never born and never dying, it were impossible for man, under the government of God in eternal Science, to fall from his high estate” (p. 258). “Right!” I said to myself. “I can’t fall. God only uplifts!”  

I recognized that God, divine Love, was the only cause and the only effect, and that cause and effect were entirely spiritual. No right activity could even for a moment separate me from God’s law of good. As God’s perfect and spiritual image, my entire being was as a spiritual reflection. As a reflection of divine Love, I knew fear could not touch me. I clung to the Bible truth from First John that states, “Perfect love casteth out fear” (4:18). I immediately felt my own fears begin to subside, and I sensed that the fears of my daughter and my friend for me were also dissipating.

I realized that this incident was a false suggestion attempting to deprive me of my joy, freedom of movement, and right activity. As the incident tried to replay in the tape recorder of my thought, I firmly pushed the mental stop button. This was no more than a waking dream, since there are no gaps in God’s loving care and control. It was a “daymare” from which I needed to awaken. As I chuckled over the ridiculous sound of that word, the humorous moment helped me break the hold of the dream-action replay.

As my foot throbbed with pain and started swelling, I prayed with the last sentence of “the scientific statement of being” from Science and Health, “. . . man is not material; he is spiritual”  (p. 468). I knew this was the truth about myself. Gratefully, another statement of truth flooded my consciousness: “Have no fear that matter can ache, swell, and be inflamed as the result of a law of any kind, when it is self-evident that matter can have no pain nor inflammation” (Science and Health, p. 393). 

Certainly, if God’s law was the only law governing me, neither material nor medical law had control over me. As I mentally agreed to obey only God’s law, the severe pain receded and the swelling in my foot started going down. Within a few minutes, I felt free enough to accept my daughter’s lovingly offered arm of support and walked gently to the car. By the time we returned home, I was able to walk by myself into my study, where I continued Christian Science treatment for myself. 

The most aggressive condition seemed to be the possibility of a sprained foot or broken bones. Instead of diagnosing the problem, I felt I was specifically facing the error that needed to be treated through prayer. Confidently and clearly, I knew that the claim of damaged anatomy was as inviable and untrue as matter itself. 

I studied this paragraph from Science and Health: “Anatomy, when conceived of spiritually, is mental self-knowledge, and consists in the dissection of thoughts to discover their quality, quantity, and origin. Are thoughts divine or human? That is the important question. This branch of study is indispensable to the excision of error. The anatomy of Christian Science teaches when and how to probe the self-inflicted wounds of selfishness, malice, envy, and hate. . . . It unfolds the hallowed influences of unselfishness, philanthropy, spiritual love. It urges the government of the body both in health and in sickness. The Christian Scientist, through understanding mental anatomy, discerns and deals with the real cause of disease. The material physician gropes among phenomena, which fluctuate every instant under influences not embraced in his diagnosis, and so he may stumble and fall in the darkness” (pp. 462–463).

Well, wasn’t this exactly what I was dealing with? That stumbling and falling could be a cause of inharmony, or dis-ease; whereas, in truth, I needed to probe “self-inflicted wounds” such as those of impetuosity and carelessness. I prayerfully countered impetuosity (defined in the dictionary as “acting suddenly with little thought”) with the truth that man acts only under the omnipresent and omnipotent guidance of divine Mind. I countered carelessness (or being unprotected) with the spiritual fact that I am, as Mrs. Eddy so beautifully put it, eternally “under the protection of the Most High” (Science and Health, p. 436).

At this point, I went to bed for the night. I was awakened several times by pain in various parts of my body. I had addressed the pain in my foot and had no further problem there, but now I expanded my spiritual treatment. I quickly did this, and then returned to bed for a good night’s sleep. 

Within a day, I was walking with total freedom. During a trip some days later, I participated in a three-hour nature hike, climbing with great enthusiasm through a steep rainforest jungle.

During this trip, I also had occasion to go barefoot. To my surprise, a new acquaintance exclaimed, “Whatever did you do to your foot?” I looked at my foot for the first time in weeks. (I had consciously avoided examining my foot earlier because I did not want to focus at all on the physical appearance.) There, along my foot, was a very large bruise. “Oh my,” I said, laughing. “I need to take care of that!” Nothing more was said. 

Again I affirmed to myself that if God is the only cause, there can be no effect except that which is good. Since I had never fallen from God’s care, any “effect” claiming otherwise was a lie, an illegitimate nothingness. To my great joy, a few hours later I realized that all trace of the bruise had disappeared.

I am extremely grateful that the examples of Jesus’ healings in the Scriptures, and the Science of healing, as explained by the Discoverer of Christian Science, have given me a working knowledge of the truth that quickly and effectively meets my needs.

Karolyn Sewell
 Menlo Park, California, US