I was already slightly irked at my husband when he said something that I felt was thoughtless and unappreciative. At the time, I was standing on the top rung of a stepladder while painting an area around our chimney. After he left the house, I started to descend the ladder and missed a step, falling to the floor, followed by the ladder.

“Missed a step” is an appropriate way to describe what I was experiencing both mentally and physically. In my morning prayers that day, I had neglected to follow this guidance for members of The Church of Christ, Scientist: “It shall be the duty of every member of this Church to defend himself daily against aggressive mental suggestion, and not be made to forget nor to neglect his duty to God, to his Leader, and to mankind” (Mary Baker Eddy, Manual of The Mother Church, p. 42). I realized that the aggression hadn’t come from anything my husband had done or said but from my entertaining suggestions of arrogance and mentally insisting that I was right and he was wrong. This needed to be dealt with.

Lying on the floor, I had to decide whether I wanted to feel pain and see bruises or instead be willing to see myself as part of God’s beautiful, loving universe. Choosing both wasn’t an option because one would negate the other. It took me a while to release thoughts of self-pity and hurt, but eventually I pushed the ladder away and got up, claiming my identity as a loved and cared-for child of God. I have had so many healings by applying the teachings of Christian Science that I knew by now that there really aren’t any accidents in God’s universe.