It’s not an expression I normally use. I’m much more likely to say, “I’ll take care of you,” or “I’m looking out for you.” I also remember only one time that “I’ve got your back” was said to me. It’s something I’ll never forget, but not just because to me it was an unfamiliar turn of phrase.

It was about three in the morning. I couldn’t sleep. In fact, I’d hardly slept for days. I was traveling, and starting just before I’d boarded an overnight flight three days earlier, I had been suffering from back pain. Now I was lying on an uncomfortable hotel bed, just a few hours before attending a day-long presentation in an uncomfortable auditorium setting. I felt desperate.

Spells of back pain were nothing new to me. For a few years they had overtaken me every month or two. But they had always passed after a few hours or, at most, a day. Each time, I had prayed as I’ve learned to do in Christian Science, affirming my status as God’s perfect, spiritual idea, loved and maintained by Him. And those prayers to understand that my God-given health is not subject to material conditions and circumstances always put an end to the pain.