Testimony of Healing April 1, 2013 ISSUE

Back pain overcome

Alexandra Hawley

A few years ago, I made an appointment to have some Oriental rugs cleaned for an upcoming party in our home. On the morning they were to be picked up, the shop called to check whether we had any heavy furniture on the rugs. Indeed, we had a grand piano! They informed me they had regulations about lifting heavy pieces and couldn’t collect the rugs until the piano had been moved. I was a bit irritated that they hadn’t told me sooner. 

As the rug cleaning was urgent, I went over to the piano and rather impulsively started to move it myself. Immediately, I felt something snap in my back, and fierce pain tore through me. I sat down and began to pray earnestly.

The first thing I did was to change my thought about the cleaners—they surely had a right to their policy, which was designed to keep their movers safe. Then I thought of the Bible’s assurance that God is all powerful, and that His constant protection keeps us all from harm. Nothing is ever out of His control. We need never fear discord, sickness, or accident. I then prayed very specifically with the strong statements on pages 390–393 of Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which insist on the perfection of God’s creation (including me!) and deny any power to evil in any form. 

Though I realized I was on the right healing track, at one point the question came: “Are you surprised there’s a penalty to pay? You’re barely five feet tall and you just did something really stupid.” That seemed reasonable from a human standpoint, but I knew that thought didn’t come from God. So I listened quietly for what I needed to know, and these words came to me: “The perfection of God’s kingdom precludes even the possibility of our being stupid.” I realized that in my spiritual identity as God’s likeness I couldn’t do anything ungodlike and that He always sees me as his loved daughter, the very expression of His being. 

Soon I felt that comforting sense of God’s love for me, and the pain began to fade. I happened to be in the middle of a large spring cleaning project and decided to go on with the work. Within a few days the pain had completely gone.

Now, whenever I am tempted to be hard on myself, I gratefully remember this experience and the lessons I learned. Among them, that even when we make mistakes, God shows us how to correct them and never stops loving us.

I might add that our rugs did get cleaned in time for the party.

Alexandra Hawley
Atherton, California, US

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