Arm and shoulder fully functional

I enjoy riding a bike. I follow a five-mile course along bike paths in my community very often. On a late September day three years ago, toward the end of my ride, I sped along at a good clip. Beginning to feel too warm, I decided to remove my windbreaker without stopping. Big mistake! As I slipped off one sleeve, the jacket dropped and became caught in the wheel spokes. It instantly stopped the bike, throwing me forward against the handle bars, then flipping me in a complete somersault. I finally landed on my head and one shoulder, and the rest of me followed, hitting flat on the pavement. 

At first I lay there stunned. My ribs were painful and my shoulder and arm were immobile. I hadn’t seen anyone around, but I knew that unless I was able to get up, eventually someone would call an ambulance. 

Some of the first thoughts that came to me were critical. How could I have been so stupid? But I knew that kind of thinking would not promote healing, so I reached out for inspiration. I started to repeat to myself, “I am perfect in God.” Hoping I was alone, I started repeating it out loud over and over again as I lay there. That was all I could do for a while. 

Then I attempted to get up and found that by being very careful and slow, I could do it. As I stood up, I noticed a young boy with his dog a short distance down the path. He asked if I was all right, and I said yes. With my left arm I was able to straighten the bike, then started to push it the last mile home. 

I am not what you would call a spring chicken. A lot of people are retired at my age. For several years I’d had problems with that arm and shoulder, not being able to raise the arm above my head. Now it seemed that possibly more serious damage had been done. A year or two earlier, a colleague had damaged his shoulder and had ended up spending tens of thousands of dollars on corrective surgery and months of rehab to restore normal movement. 

After I got home, the enormity of what had happened washed over me, accompanied by fear. I sat down at the computer and with one hand typed an e-mail to a Christian Science practitioner. His reply was instant. He said that to believe that matter is communicating to us—testifying to lack or illness—is simply an illusion. Matter cannot communicate or make a condition for God’s man. God is the Lawgiver and also the thought-giver.

I felt the clarity and power of these truths. They gave me confidence. The practitioner told me to rid myself right then of all the false mental images associated with the incident and to affirm that the only thing that occurred that day was God. Wow! The authority of that statement gave me a big boost. 

There were significant mobility challenges as I attempted to do the normal things to take care of myself, but I just slowed down, planned ahead, and never thought of myself as incapacitated. The practitioner helped me see that material conditions are not reality, but only a mental suggestion telling us we are mortal when in fact we are spiritual. Because we are immortal reflections of the one divine Mind, God, we can’t be mesmerized into believing we are mortal.

It was interesting that as a semi-professional athlete, the practitioner had had a similar experience with his shoulder many years before and was fully restored through prayer in Christian Science.

My improvement started slowly, but continued steadily. In the days that followed, I progressed from being able to start the car, to shaking a client’s hand, to at the end of two weeks being able to lift my hand above my head and get back on that bike. I’ve been biking every day since and even lift weights on a regular basis.

I still have the e-mail I sent two weeks after the accident telling the practitioner that I could now lift my arm above my head and stating that this was truly a wonderful healing. He shared with me many inspiring truths over the course of those two weeks, and each one lifted me higher and higher until I finally achieved complete freedom. I am very grateful for his effective prayers, and for Christian Science and all the blessings that come when we turn to it in time of need.

Brian Pettersen
Vernon Hills, Illinois, US