Quickly healed of stiffness

Over a decade ago, during a car trip lasting roughly five hours, I found myself unable to move when I stopped for a meal and fuel. It was difficult to turn my head and move my limbs. I was unable to get out of my vehicle.

As I was traveling alone and still had about two hours of driving before me, I was very concerned and afraid. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before. But I expressed, silently and humbly, deep gratitude for the spiritual understanding I had gained through my study and practice of Christian Science. I knew from personal experience that God was “a very present help in trouble” (Psalms 46:1), and that Christian Science is a practical help, not theory. My lifelong study of the Bible and the Christian Science textbook, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy, had been steadily spiritualizing my thought and life, rescuing me from character faults, sickness, deafness in one ear, and so forth.

As I wondered what I should do in this situation, two thoughts came to me. First, I needed to replace fear and dread with love and an absolute trust in God, Spirit, infinite good. As the textbook urges: “Always begin your treatment by allaying the fear of patients. Silently reassure them as to their exemption from disease and danger” (p. 411). Metaphysical treatment in Christian Science consists of knowing the truth of spiritual being and denying the validity of physical sense testimony; it’s based on the allness of Spirit, God, and the consequent nothingness of the opposite of Spirit, called matter, error.

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