Several years ago I began to experience a sharp internal pain, which at different times would move back and forth from my side to my back. For several nights, sleep was very difficult. I called a Christian Science practitioner for help and was able to go to work and carry out my duties as a professor during the day; at night, however, the problem was more challenging. 

At this time I was feeling a lot of pressure with my workload, since it was the end of the semester. As the holidays approached, my husband lovingly gave me an early Christmas present—an entire day all to myself at a local hotel for prayer and study. When I checked in, the room number assigned to me reminded me of a favorite hymn, which begins, 

O may we be still and seek Him,
Seek with consecration whole,
Listening thus to hear the message,
Far from sense and hid in Soul.
(Fay Linn, Christian Science Hymnal, No. 237, © CSBD)