I was at a park with my dad, and we were playing soccer together. My dad accidentally kicked the ball toward a dog. When I went to get the ball back, the dog got scared because it thought I was running toward it, not the ball. The dog jumped at me and bit me on the arm. It really hurt, and I was scared. 

My dad took me home to get me cleaned up. On the drive home, we talked about what had happened. I said I would never trust dogs again! But then we talked about how the dog wasn’t trying to hurt me. It just got scared. This helped me not be mad at the dog. It was a short drive, but I forgave the dog.

When we got home, my mom and dad cleaned and bandaged my arm. We all prayed, which is something I’ve been learning how to do through Christian Science. Praying can help us listen to good thoughts that are always coming from God, and those thoughts heal us. While we prayed, my dad and I read a story in the Sentinel by a girl who had also been bitten by a dog (Hannah, “Dog bite—healed quickly,” June 20, 2011). She shared how she prayed, which was helpful, and we prayed in a little bit of the same way.