One evening over a year ago, I was walking with a friend in my neighborhood. It was getting dark, and sticks and other debris on the sidewalk had not been fully cleared after a recent storm. Not paying attention, I tripped over a tree branch, fell, and was badly hurt. 

As a student of Christian Science, I’ve had many healings that have proved the effectiveness of prayer in times of trouble. I’ve learned that a good way to respond to an accident or any need is to turn immediately to God and acknowledge that He made me and maintains me. 

As my friend helped me up, one of the first thoughts that came to me was that I was “unfallen, upright, pure, and free,” a phrase from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. The full statement reads, “Through discernment of the spiritual opposite of materiality, even the way through Christ, Truth, man will reopen with the key of divine Science the gates of Paradise which human beliefs have closed, and will find himself unfallen, upright, pure, and free, not needing to consult almanacs for the probabilities either of his life or of the weather, not needing to study brainology to learn how much of a man he is” (p. 171).