Quick recovery from kitchen mishap

A few years ago I was in the process of cooking dinner. I’m not much of a cook, but this time I had really enjoyed following a recipe and preparing the entree. The pan had been in a 350 degree oven for about 40 minutes when I took it out to add a sauce. I poured the sauce over it, and then picked it up again to put it back in the oven. However, I had neglected to put on oven mitts. The glass baking dish was about ten inches off the tile counter before the pain hit me and I realized what I was doing.

All that day I had been praying with a phrase from the definition of Church in the Glossary of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, which says, “the demonstration of divine Science” (p. 583 ). The entire definition reads: “Church. The structure of Truth and Love; whatever rests upon and proceeds from divine Principle.

“The Church is that institution, which affords proof of its utility and is found elevating the race, rousing the dormant understanding from material beliefs to the apprehension of spiritual ideas and the demonstration of divine Science, thereby casting out devils, or error, and healing the sick.”

I had so enjoyed working with that phrase: “the demonstration of divine Science.” In other words, affirming that the proof of divine Science’s healing power, activity, and presence could be seen in every aspect of my life.

When I picked up the hot glass pan without the oven mitts, my immediate thought was along the lines of: This is undoubtedly the dumbest thing you have ever done. But I stopped myself mid-thought and switched to: This undoubtedly will be a demonstration of divine Science! In other words, it would be a reliable proof of God’s care. That was a much more helpful thought, and a healing one.

In quickly affirming that concept—this undoubtedly is a demonstration of divine Science—I was consciously claiming the fundamental fact from Genesis 1:26 that man, meaning me, as the image and likeness of God, Spirit, must be spiritual. I am a spiritual idea, whole and complete, and therefore not subject to or vulnerable to material conditions of any kind.

After picking up the hot pan all I really wanted to do was to drop it, but I carefully put the pan back down on the counter, put the oven mitts on, and then placed the pan back in the oven. I didn’t take those mitts off for several minutes. I didn’t want to take them off until the pain was gone and I was certain that there wouldn’t be anything to see out of the ordinary. To examine matter would have been to make a reality out of the problem, and that was exactly what I was trying not to do.

What came to me was a statement from Science and Health: “Hold perpetually this thought,—that it is the spiritual idea, the Holy Ghost and Christ, which enables you to demonstrate, with scientific certainty, the rule of healing, based upon its divine Principle, Love, underlying, overlying, and encompassing all true being” (p. 496 ). The Christ and Holy Ghost enveloping me—what protection! I knew I had to hold to that thought, and I loved the idea of divine Principle, Love, “underlying, overlying, and encompassing all true being”—great “metaphysical oven mitts.”

I held to the thought that the spiritual idea, the Holy Ghost and Christ, would allow me to “demonstrate, with scientific certainty, the rule of healing.”

The matter-based law of physics that says a bush on fire must be consumed was overturned by the higher law of God in Moses’ time, when the burning bush wasn’t consumed (see Exodus 3:2 ). When the three young Hebrew men were thrown into the burning fiery furnace, all that was burned were the bonds that held them. When they were released from the furnace there wasn’t even the smell of smoke on them (see Daniel 3:1–30 ). I knew this universal law of God, good, could be evident in my experience also.

When I took off the oven mitts a few minutes later, the pain was gone and there wasn’t even the slightest red mark on either of my hands.

I was and am so very grateful for this Science of the Christ—Christian Science —that allows us to prove in our time the healing power of God’s presence in our lives.

Patricia Gantt Reiman
Colorado Springs, Colorado