During the summer after I finished the eleventh grade, I attended a summer camp for Christian Scientists. On the night before we were to head home from camp, I was at a dance where a couple was doing swing moves. Suddenly they swung around and accidentally hit me squarely in the knee, causing it to dislocate. Unable to walk, I was assisted back to my cabin, where I began to pray. 

The Christian Science practitioner at the camp came to see me and shared this statement by Mary Baker Eddy: “God creates man perfect and eternal in His own image. Hence man is the image, idea, or likeness of perfection—an ideal which cannot fall from its inherent unity with divine Love, from its spotless purity and original perfection” (The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and Miscellany, p. 262). 

That night I prayed to see myself as unfallen, as always held and protected by God. I continued to pray with these ideas over the next week, and the pain dissipated. I also regained the ability to walk. However, I was unable to fully extend my leg, and it was evident that my kneecap was not properly aligned.