I was just learning to ride my bike

Tyler Collins with contributions from Nancy Earl Collins

I was just learning to ride my bike. I couldn't control it very well, and I ran into the newspaper box. I got a cut on my hand.

Then my Aunt Nancy told me to reverse "I am hurt" to "I am not hurt." I knew I couldn't be hurt because God is always with me.

And after that, I couldn't even feel it!

Tyler Collins
Anchorage, Alaska

Tyler was very excited that his cousins, Ben and Louise, were helping him to ride his bike without training wheels! Only a few minutes passed before he ran into the newspaper stand, though.

I washed and bandaged the cut. Then, as I was just putting dinner on the table, I asked Louise and Tyler to find a Bible verse to read for grace. I felt that this would help direct their thoughts toward the real, which is spiritual.

Even after choosing a psalm, however, Tyler was still upset about his hand. He said it kept hurting more and more. I brought him into my office and, using Concord, quickly found and read aloud to him this passage from Science and Health: "When an accident happens, you think or exclaim, 'I am hurt!' Your thought is more powerful than your words, more powerful than the accident itself, to make the injury real."

The next paragraph continues: "Now reverse the process. Declare that you are not hurt and understand the reason why ..." (p.397). We discussed this briefly. I asked him to say "I am not hurt!" He became very serious—all business—and readily agreed to do so. He then told me why it was that he could not be hurt. He calmed right down, and we went to the table.

We had only begun eating when he announced that his hand didn't hurt a bit!

After dinner the kids were back on their bikes.

It was the next day in the grocery store before I happened to notice the hand again. The bandage was gone and the hand was smooth, though there was some discoloration. A few weeks later when I saw Tyler again I could not tell which hand had been injured—there was no mark anywhere.

Nancy Earl Collins
Fairbanks, Alaska

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