My wife, Dotty, and I had taken some time off to visit my mother. She lived in a wilderness area in a home that had been an old hunting cabin, and there was thick brush throughout the property. My mom, with help, had cleared a meadow in front of the house. I offered to use a chain saw to cut out some brush. 

I got to work, but suddenly the saw hooked on the branches and kicked back, cutting one of my fingers apparently to the bone. Mom saw this happen and ran me to the house, put my hand in the sink, and ran cold water over it. 

My sister, who was also at the cabin, was a medical nurse. She was extremely concerned about the wound and wanted to take me to a hospital for stitches.

At the time, I was just learning about the teachings of Christian Science and the healing power of prayer from my wife, who worked as a Christian Science nurse. When Dotty came into the room to see what had happened, I felt the expectancy of healing she felt from having witnessed healing through reliance on God many times, and I told my family everything would be all right. I was very grateful for my wife’s calmness, which immediately eased everyone’s fears. My mother was happy to let my wife take over in assisting me by cleaning the wound and wrapping it with gauze. Seeing that I was well cared for, my sister never mentioned stitches again.

I don’t remember if my wife shared with me at the time what she was thinking or how she was praying, but I knew she must be quietly acknowledging that God was present and the only power and refuting the belief that an accident had power or reality. Discussing this later, I thanked her for her prayers. She said she figured I had been praying too, adding that she had been supporting me by affirming this statement of truth in the Christian Science textbook: “Under divine Providence there can be no accidents, since there is no room for imperfection in perfection” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 424). 

I had always loved attending Christian Science lectures with my wife, and at one of these lectures I had heard for the first time that God is All-in-all, meaning everywhere, and that we are always under God’s loving care. Furthermore, I had previously thought of God as a corporeal being, a person like myself, seeing good and evil, but I learned in Christian Science that God is entirely good and is incorporeal and perfect—and so are we as God’s reflection. Since everything our Mother-Father created is perfect and good, there is no reality in any occurrence that isn’t good, and we can’t suffer from it.

In quiet moments together after the incident, my wife and I both felt the presence of our loving God, who meets every need, just as Christ Jesus said: “Your Father knoweth what things ye have need of, before ye ask him” (Matthew 6:8). No mention of the injury was made by anyone the rest of the day. The next morning as we prepared to leave, one member of the family suggested we should stay longer since I probably wouldn’t be able to do much driving. However, the trip home was harmonious. The atmosphere of calm I felt during this time has continued to be an inspiration to me.

The wound on my finger healed quickly and completely. In fact, shortly after the incident I was able to wear my new wedding band, for which I’d been fitted before our vacation, on that same finger. Looking at that finger, no one would ever know anything had ever happened. This healing occurred more than twenty years ago. 

Since that time I have had many other healings through relying on God. I joined The Mother Church, The First Church of Christ, Scientist, in Boston; I also trained to be a Christian Science nurse and have worked in that capacity for several years. 

Being a student of Christian Science has changed my life. I have found God to be a friend I can count on all the time. 

Tom Davis
Glendale, Arizona, US