I was stepping over a six-foot ladder lying on its side on the balcony of my new apartment when I lost my balance. The ladder and I both fell over. One of my legs got tangled up with the ladder, and it took me a minute to get free. The leg was very painful.

A line from “the scientific statement of being” came immediately to thought: “All is infinite Mind and its infinite manifestation, for God is All-in-all” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 468). I affirmed my true selfhood to be the manifestation of that infinite Mind, the only cause. 

Feeling rather shocked by the mishap and the pain, I called a Christian Science practitioner and asked her to pray with me, which she agreed to do. I then stayed mentally with the omnipotence of God, good, and the perfection of God’s creation. I refused to believe an accident had happened to my true, spiritual self, and I denied that injury could be an effect from something that had never taken place in divine reality. On that basis, I reasoned that I had an alibi: I “wasn’t there” in that material scenario because I had never left the presence of Love, God. I refused to rehearse the sequence of events and instead let the thought of God fill my consciousness.