In early 2022, I began experiencing a slight sore throat and a little sniffling. It wasn’t long before I was dealing with many aggressive symptoms, including struggling to breathe. I briefly considered going to a hospital. But my next thought was that since this problem was based on a belief that life is material, going deeper into that belief was not going to take me in a good direction. Instead, although I could barely breathe, I shouted with the little bit of voice I had left that God is my life and that God is supplying all that I need, including breath. I also called a Christian Science practitioner for treatment through prayer. Within a few hours, the difficulty in breathing stopped and never returned. 

Two days later, I felt much better and was able to shovel all of the snow from a big storm with no difficulty. Some slight symptoms remained, however. During this time, mask mandates were being lifted, and I took a Covid test, expecting to get back to normal and go maskless. To my dismay, the test results came back positive. I suddenly felt very discouraged. The symptoms, which I had assumed were fading, seemed instead to have settled in.  

After a few days, I finally began to awaken from this discouraged state, realizing that instead of correctly seeing myself and others as dwelling under God’s unfailingly good government, I had slid into believing that I had gone through a miserable experience, from which I wasn’t yet entirely free. From the start of the pandemic, I had dedicated a portion of time daily to praying about our innate, God-given freedom and health—that they cannot be invaded, harmed, or lost. I realized now that this experience hadn’t negated the truth I had been affirming in my prayer but was instead a demand to stick with that spiritual understanding and really know it.