Many of the best lessons come to us in unexpected ways and mean the most when they lead to healing. One such healing happened after my daughter and her family visited me from out of state to see my new home. 

During a lovely warm day in October, we took a walk from where we’d eaten lunch back to my apartment. As we walked across a rocky path, I suddenly fell, landing on my right side and scratching my face in several places. My daughter helped me up, and although I felt hurt all over, nothing seemed to be broken or seriously injured.

We went home, and my daughter helped me clean my face and apply bandages to the cuts. My daughter kept asking me if I was all right, and I assured her I was. After several hours of visiting, we all hugged each other, said our good-byes, and off she and the family went on their journey back home.

As evening approached, I felt some discomfort in my right arm and left knee. Over the next few hours, the pain intensified, making it difficult to walk. I began to pray, remembering that “accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God’s unerring direction and thus bring out harmony” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 424). I never doubted that God holds all of us safely in His loving care at all times and under all circumstances.

As I went to bed that night, I continued my prayer with “the scientific statement of being” (see Science and Health, p. 468). The last two statements in the paragraph are: “Spirit is God, and man is His image and likeness. Therefore man is not material; he is spiritual.” I like to make these statements my own by affirming in thought that I am God’s image and likeness, and I am not material; I am spiritual. 

As I prayed through the night, these words from the Christian Science Hymnal came to me:

Then a short, but to-the-point statement came to me, which I’d heard from a Christian Science lecture I attended years ago: “God is, this isn’t, and that’s that.” “This” refers to a troubling issue. What that phrase meant to me was that God, good, certainly is the only power and presence; therefore, injury and pain are not true because they do not come from God. And that’s the end of the argument. With that assurance, I knew that I would be healed and able to go to church the next day without any difficulty. I held to these thoughts until early in the morning when I finally went to sleep.

When I awoke a few hours later, I got out of bed and walked freely. There was no pain, and I could move my arm with complete mobility. I went to church and to lunch afterward with some friends. Later that day, my daughter called to ask if I was all right, and I confidently said yes, as there was no doubt that I was healed. Within about a week the scratches on my face cleared away. There was still some soreness on my right cheekbone, but within a few days that was also healed. 

This experience taught me that God holds us safely in His love and we can trust God to care for us, every moment. God is good, and that’s that!

Marci Martin
Tucson, Arizona, US