While on a snowshoe trip high in the Sierra Nevada, I found myself struggling to breathe and with intense pain in one ear. While the friend I was snowshoeing with took time to adjust her boots, I stood still on a windswept, snowy hill some distance from her, feeling miserable.

I drank some water and ate a snack, but I still did not feel right. So I closed my eyes and prayed with a passage that’s always been meaningful to me—“the scientific statement of being” from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy—even as cold wind blew across my face. The first part says: “There is no life, truth, intelligence, nor substance in matter. All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all” (p. 468). 

As I prayed, I became aware of God’s majestic presence on that snow-covered mountain and across every landscape. I felt God’s care for everything in His creation and the power and wisdom of God, which supersede the supposed power of high elevation and cold temperatures. The thought came to me to wrap my long scarf around my head and to put my hat on top to hold it in place.