While visiting family at Christmas several years ago, I enjoyed many walks on the beach. These walks were about eight miles in length. One afternoon, when I had walked about three miles, I stepped forward and felt a very sharp pain in my heel. It was not unusual to step on a sharp shell and feel a momentary sting, but this was different. I stopped and looked at my foot, and the picture was alarming. My heel was bleeding profusely. 

In quick succession, a chorus of fearful thoughts bombarded me. Should I end my walk early and turn toward home? Should I hobble to the public facility nearby and ask someone for help bandaging my foot? I didn’t have my cellphone, so I couldn’t call a Christian Science practitioner or contact my family to come and pick me up. I became more and more concerned as a range of anxious thoughts streamed into my consciousness, and as the pain and bleeding continued.

Then, in the midst of these fearful thoughts, I almost laughed out loud, remembering that that week’s Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly included this message to Moses: “The place whereon thou standest is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5). Why, I thought, that is true right now, right where I am standing! I am on “holy ground” because I can never step outside of the kingdom of heaven or be out of the arms of God, divine Love.