About a year and a half ago, I went skiing at a nearby mountain after a snowstorm. It had snowed a foot overnight, and I was looking forward to the fresh powder. For my first run, I chose a path through some trees, but didn’t realize that there were hidden rocks. My skis caught on one, and I tumbled forward, striking one knee on other rocks before sinking into the snow in fear and pain.

Earlier that morning, I had studied the weekly Bible Lesson outlined in the Christian Science Quarterly. As I reached out to God on that mountain, a statement from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy that the Lesson had included brought immediate inspiration and comfort: “The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history” (pp. 470–471). 

This statement was a powerful rebuke to the perception that an accident could interrupt the harmony and peace of God’s creation, bringing pain and injury. 

I had learned in my study of Christian Science that, as divine Mind’s idea, the loved child of God’s creating, I am eternally one with God, divine Principle. And, knowing that Principle eternally governs and orders every aspect of its creation and upholds its own law of good, I prayed to understand that my perfect unity with Principle was unbreakable and uninterrupted. I reasoned that because I had never been separated from God, I could not have lapsed from harmony or fallen out of divine Love’s embrace.

My husband skied to my side and lovingly reassured me with healing truths about my safety in God, Love. I felt strengthened by our prayers, and the pain lessened enough that I was able to ski gently to our car. Once there, I called a Christian Science practitioner to give me Christian Science treatment. Eventually, I felt calmer and a little better physically, and my husband drove me home.

Over the following weeks, I continued to pray, as did the practitioner. While initially disappointed not to be skiing each weekend as usual, I learned to cherish the time spent in deep prayer and study of Christian Science. Disappointment gave way to gratitude for the abundant lessons I was learning about God’s supremacy and ever-present help as well as about my own spiritual identity as His beloved child. 

During this time, I frequently heard people speaking of broken and fractured knees. Because I was still experiencing intense discomfort while walking and could see that there was an abnormality with the bone, it was as though people around me were unknowingly voicing what I feared had happened to me. While unintentional on their part, these discussions of symptoms, medical solutions, and recovery time felt like an aggressive intrusion on my commitment to spiritual healing. It felt as though I was being tempted not to trust that Christian Science heals and makes whole, even that which the world claims can only be helped through surgery. Each time this kind of conversation made me fearful, I reaffirmed my indestructible spiritual unity with God and persisted in declaring that neither I nor anyone else had ever fallen out of God’s perfect love. 

After some time, following a conversation with the practitioner, I was inspired to pray with this sentence from Science and Health: “Principle is not to be found in fragmentary ideas” (p. 302). As I pondered this truth, I thought, “What is Principle’s idea, since it is not fragmentary? And what law is divine Principle enacting for me?”

To find answers to these questions, I looked to a statement in Science and Health that seems to disregard grammatical rules in order to emphasize spiritual reality. It says, “Principle and its idea is one . . .” (p. 465). 

This inseparable unity of Principle and idea, God and man, means that man—the true spiritual identity of each one of us—expresses Principle’s exact nature. Principle is perfect, harmonious, and entire, and man embodies those same qualities. I concluded that, in contrast to fragmentation, Principle can be expressed only by a complete and whole idea. Neither Principle nor its idea can be divided or fragmented, since Principle is perfect oneness. I also saw that Principle’s law of safety and health is the only law governing the universe, including man. Therefore, supposed material laws resulting in injury simply can’t be real or the lawful fact of our existence.

I began to truly see myself as Principle’s perfect idea—perfectly one with God—and as never having been separate from God. This was a turning point in the healing. By the following week, I was able to walk and run freely. I skied the rest of the season, and the bone abnormality completely disappeared.

For months afterward, though, my knee hurt when unintentionally knocked. Each time this happened, I declared that the healing was complete and final. Then it came to me to trustingly acknowledge that God is the supreme and only healer—that God heals His children because He loves us. We read in the Bible, “I am the Lord that healeth thee” (Exodus 15:26). With this new view of God’s love, any lingering pain disappeared. 

I am most grateful to Christian Science for giving me an understanding of the inseparability of God and man, which heals. This healing brought even more than the restoration of health and bodily structure; it brought many spiritual lessons about who I am as divine Principle’s idea. Thank you, God!

Lindsey Pagett
Boston, Massachusetts, US