I was helping my husband move a mattress when an agonizing wrench in my back caused me to drop the mattress and collapse to the floor. The pain was intense, and I was essentially immobile.

My husband helped me to the couch. The previous evening, a family member had shared copious details about a debilitating spinal condition that he was experiencing and told me about his plans for surgery. Instead of immediately recognizing, as Christian Science teaches, that under God’s laws, which are always good, no one, including this dear family member, could be made to suffer, I had allowed these discordant images to burrow into my consciousness unchecked. Now, thinking about my family member’s plight along with my own sudden immobility made me very afraid. Knowing I needed to transform my thinking about the situation immediately, I contacted a Christian Science practitioner for help through prayer.

The practitioner emphasized that because harmony always reigns in God’s kingdom, which is our true, spiritual abode, I couldn’t experience differing phases of being—sometimes good, sometimes bad. I pondered this idea and tried to recognize that I was not living in a material body but in Spirit, God, and that my true, spiritual identity could never experience an accident or become disabled. Harmony and freedom of movement are natural for a spiritual idea. I worked hard not to dwell on memories of previous injuries or to contemplate any timetable for healing. In particular, I resisted the temptation to imagine that because I was older now, recovery could take longer.