Some years ago when my daughter was nine or ten years old, she was on a softball team. Sometimes when the coach was late, the parents would start the practice, and I would join in. On one of these occasions, I ran after a ball, and as I was reaching for it, something popped in my leg. Although barely able to walk, I made it back to my car, where I waited until the practice ended. 

Our family had plans to go on a vacation a few weeks later. We were going to Grand Canyon National Park in Arizona and would be hiking a total of about ten miles—down into the canyon and then back up again. I couldn’t imagine how I was even going to drive home from the softball practice in my car, which had a manual transmission, much less do the Grand Canyon hike.

As I sat in the car, I was criticizing myself for not being in very good physical shape. It was a cold day, and I had not warmed up before helping with the practice. Then the thought came, “You’re in the best metaphysical shape you’ve ever been in.” At the time, I was serving as First Reader in my branch Church of Christ, Scientist. I was enjoying the spiritual growth from my deep study of the Bible Lesson every week in preparation for conducting Sunday services as well as from putting together readings for the Wednesday testimony meetings.