I was coming home from an early spring bike ride when I lost control of my bike on a patch of ice. I fell hard and was scraped, bleeding, and in a lot of pain. My husband came running, and we both prayed while I was on the ground, affirming my God-created and -maintained well-being. 

I knew that God has all power and is ever present—that He had never left my side. Nor had I ever stopped being His spiritual reflection. With confidence in this spiritual truth, I met the suggestion of severe pain with a simple “No! No! I am untouched.” I just kept affirming that truth. 

A statement from that week’s Bible Lesson from the Christian Science Quarterly was a helpful guide: “Health is not a condition of matter, but of Mind; . . .” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 120). That meant my well-being was not at the whim of matter but was established spiritual fact. Health could never be taken from me but was my heritage as God’s child.