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.