Testimony of Healing September 23, 2019 Issue

Quick relief from pain

Bryan White

While barbecuing on the grill on our backyard porch, I was enjoying the flowers that had just blossomed near the porch and watching the ducks swim in the canal behind our house. The time came to put some sauce on the meat I was cooking, and as I did so, some of the sauce accidentally dripped onto the grill’s faceplate. This faceplate was extremely hot, since it is connected to the internal parts of the grill just above the flames. I took a wet cloth and began to wipe up the sauce. As I was doing this, the cloth caught on a corner of the grill and suddenly stopped, sending my hand and fingers unprotected onto the hot faceplate surface. It took only a second to realize the situation and feel the heat burning my fingers. The pain came immediately.

After I saw what had just occurred, my first thought was to condemn myself for not paying closer attention to what I was doing. I did a good job of mentally chastising myself for a couple of moments; then, I reached out to God for a calming, healing message. As soon as the request was made, the thought came to me to not look at the material evidence of a burn. I sat down in one of the porch chairs and put my hand down where I couldn’t see it.

New God-thoughts came: The belief is punished only so long as the belief lasts, and if there is no acceptance of the belief as fact, there is no punishment. This called to mind a statement in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy: “Belief produces the results of belief, and the penalties it affixes last so long as the belief and are inseparable from it” (p. 184). Soon another angel message came: “Accidents are unknown to God …” (Science and Health, p. 424). I reasoned from these ideas that I didn’t have to accept this belief of pain and accident.