Testimony of Healing April 1, 2019 Issue

Recovery from a fall

Gregory Sandford

In the summer of 2017, I decided to remove a half-fallen tree limb from a wooded area in my backyard. Against the advice of my daughter and her husband, who were visiting for a family celebration, I leaned a heavy ladder against the limb and climbed up to a height of about 15 feet to take it down with a chain saw. The ladder was placed against a part of the branch that I thought was supported by the rest of the tree. I was wrong: It was resting on the part of the branch I was cutting off.

As I began to cut the branch, the ladder and I fell. I was very grateful to God that I wasn’t entangled in the ladder, that the chain saw fell harmlessly a few feet away from where I landed, and that I didn’t fall on stumps of saplings I’d cut down earlier. But my daughter appeared quite distraught, having witnessed the whole event.

My daughter and her husband helped me get to a chair in the house, and she urged me to go to a hospital immediately to be checked for any broken bones or internal injuries. Within minutes of being in the chair, I regained composure and began praying for myself. I opted to handle this through prayer in Christian Science; I’d seen its effectiveness in other situations.

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