One day last year I listened to the Sentinel Watch podcast, and the guest that week was a Christian Science practitioner (John Biggs, “The stillness that makes all the difference,” January 3, 2022). He talked about a time when he severely injured his ankle while playing with his young son. After a few minutes of consecrated prayer, he was up and playing again. He described thoroughly turning his thought away from pain and fear and holding firmly to the fact that God was right there, so he could be still and rest in the knowledge of God’s allness and goodness. 

That made a powerful impression on me. It reminded me of this statement by Mary Baker Eddy: “No evidence before the material senses can close my eyes to the scientific proof that God, good, is supreme” (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 277).

A few months later I had an experience that compelled me to put the kind of prayer and stillness he described into practice. In the middle of the night I got out of bed to open a window, and when it didn’t open as far as I wanted it to, I reached over to the side where thin metal bars held the window in place. Somehow, I caught a finger between the bars and closed them on that finger. The pain was intense.