Injured foot healed
Lessons learned while praying are my most valuable ones, and I’d like to tell of a treasured lesson from which I hope others may benefit. One of my dear friends is a horse—a leopard Appaloosa. Her coat is white with brownish black spots, and she is quite tall. You never met a gentler, braver horse. At all times, she is very considerate and well-mannered. Not long ago, we were in a barn and she inadvertently walked on my foot. She heard me cry out loudly right by her ear but surprisingly wasn’t startled by the unexpected noise.
Immediately, I forgave her. She always has been respectful of my space, and this was completely unintentional. It may sound like I was calm and composed, but I was feeling anything but tranquility. The pain was so intense that I really couldn’t think straight—or at least I thought I couldn’t. But a point Mary Baker Eddy makes in her book Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures knocked on my mental door: “When an accident happens, you think or exclaim, ‘I am hurt!’ Your thought is more powerful than your words, more powerful than the accident itself, to make the injury real” (p. 397 ).
I realized immediately that I was working with my thought rather than a physical foot and hoof. A couple of minutes later, using the Web browser on my phone, I looked up what follows that quote in Science and Health, and it gave me specific direction on how to pray next: “Now reverse the process. Declare that you are not hurt and understand the reason why, and you will find the ensuing good effects to be in exact proportion to your disbelief in physics, and your fidelity to divine metaphysics, confidence in God as All, which the Scriptures declare Him to be.”
For me, to reverse the process meant to rerun the whole experience backward in my thought. Doing that prompted me to realize quickly that, at all times during what I thought were the elements, or steps, of an accident, both the horse and I remained creations of God, whom the Bible calls Spirit. Creations of Spirit remain spiritual at all times. Instead of exclaiming, “I am hurt,” I opened up my thought to the fact that I actually had remained spiritual, with my substance being more than just physicality—it really is my reflection of the substance that is God, which truly is invulnerable.
The pain stopped, and immediately I walked around normally, doing chores in the barn. For me to be OK so quickly made me suspicious—suspicious of matter. That probably sounds a bit surprising, yet, in a way, it’s understandable because Christian Science teaches that healings such as these don’t prove that God changes matter; what they do prove is that there is no matter. Mrs. Eddy says in Science and Health: “In divine Science, the supposed laws of matter yield to the law of Mind. What are termed natural science and material laws are the objective states of mortal mind. The physical universe expresses the conscious and unconscious thoughts of mortals. Physical force and mortal mind are one” (p. 484 ). So, you can see why I became suspicious of the whole matter picture in the first place. If the matter that makes up a foot disobeys the accepted laws of physics like that, then something is up! Matter couldn’t be exactly what it seems to be.
In the days following this experience, I showed my love for God by sticking with the inspiration He had so quickly provided, and didn’t wander away from it by ruminating or speculating about accidents. Turning my thought to God when stricken, and then sticking like Velcro to the inspiration that unfolded, is such a valuable lesson, and I treasure it.
My horse taught me a lesson, too. Remember how I mentioned that she wasn’t startled when I cried out? I saw in her how there was no blaming, apologizing, or self-chastising. There just was no point wasting time with any of that, so instead she just stood there with me as loyal, gentle, and brave as ever. For teaching that extra lesson about keeping the important things the priority, I gave her some extra treats—some horse cookies—that day.
Mark Swinney
Sandia Park, New Mexico, US
About the author
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