No more hip pain
When I began having pain in my hip several years ago, I thought it was related to some strenuous yard work I’d done. I expected it to clear up by itself, but that didn’t happen. In fact, it grew worse to the point that, when I was out walking the dog or doing errands, I’d have to stop and pray until the pain subsided enough for me to continue. Sometimes I wouldn’t feel anything for a while, but then the pain would suddenly return even more strongly. I became alarmed and discouraged.
I asked a Christian Science practitioner to pray for me. She reminded me that a physical ailment is not born of any material condition or circumstance, such as age, accident, or overwork. Nor was I seeking “better matter,” but instead a better understanding of my unbroken relationship to God as His forever whole and undamaged child. In the Bible, I read Jesus’ healing of a boy whom the disciples had been unable to cure who was suffering from what modern scholars believe to have been epilepsy. After freeing the boy from every symptom, the Master explained, “This kind can come forth by nothing, but by prayer and fasting” (Mark 9:29).
What is the “fasting” to which he refers? From an article I read on JSH-Online.com, I gleaned that it is not enough to simply acknowledge the truth that God is Spirit and that His creation is wholly spiritual and good. We must also negate the lie about evil. Specifically, we must consciously fast, or turn away, from the physical senses’ false evidence that evil is real and powerful. This is easier to do when we recognize that evil is only an erroneous mental suggestion that we do not need to accept because it is not from God.
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