“Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 571). These words were a lifeline to me throughout a recent healing when I was challenged to get to know myself much more clearly as God knows me. 

I live at a Christian Science residential community in San Francisco. On February 21 of this year, San Francisco experienced a fierce wind that some news services reported as exceeding eighty miles per hour. That day, I had gone out for lunch with fellow residents at an oceanside restaurant. As I walked toward a wide porch near the restaurant’s entrance, a wind gust lifted me off my feet and tossed me in the air before dropping me hard against a curb and onto the concrete parking lot. 

As shocking as this was, I was immediately comforted by a familiar Bible verse that came to me: “Ye shall know the truth, and the truth shall make you free” (John 8:32). What “the truth” meant to me in this instance was that we can never fall out of God’s care and that my relation to God could not be broken. 

Knowing myself as a child of God gave me strength to get up from the ground and continue on to lunch as planned, but I was not at all comfortable. Some members of our group felt I should have an X-ray taken. So, after the meal, I agreed to get one. The X-ray showed two small broken bones on the left side of my pelvis. Additional tests were performed, causing me to spend two days and two nights in the hospital, which I had not anticipated. 

At one point, the attending physician asked me how I would feel about passing on there. That was a startling question! Passing on had never entered my mind, because I knew that I am God’s creation and am therefore whole and eternal. This spiritual fact regarding my true identity left no room for such a downward spiral.

I felt that leaving the hospital would be a good idea. So I prayed to God and found comfort in this passage from the Bible: “I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me” (Philippians 4:13). An answer to my prayers came the next day when I was able to go to the nearby Christian Science nursing facility for care. 

At the time, I could not move my left leg. The hospital staff had informed me that this kind of injury would require months to heal. I knew that I would need to be able to walk freely before I could safely return to my own apartment. Throughout the time I received Christian Science nursing care, I held myself accountable to this command: “At all times and under all circumstances, overcome evil with good” (Science and Health, p. 571).

The evils I seemed to be experiencing were the claims that I couldn’t walk and that I would have a long, painful healing process. But from the moment I’d landed in the restaurant’s parking lot, I had been replacing these suggestions with statements of truth that I knew by heart from the Bible and Science and Health.  

One day, I was walking the halls with the aid of a walker and was gently encouraged to go without it by the Christian Science nurse accompanying me. That was the end of leaning on anything other than God. Through my own prayers and those of a Christian Science practitioner, I was able to return to my apartment in just five weeks, completely free.

My deepest gratitude goes to God. And my appreciation for the Christian Science nurses, who so lovingly supported this healing, knows no bounds. I have learned firsthand that “Christian Science brings to light Truth and its supremacy, universal harmony, the entireness of God, good, and the nothingness of evil” (Science and Health, p. 293). I am so grateful for Christ Jesus, the Way-shower; and for Mary Baker Eddy, the Discoverer of this wonderful Science.

Donna Ballenger
San Francisco, California, US