Back pain gone

Many years ago I injured my back lifting a heavy object into a truck bed. The pain was intense, but over a few days gradually receded. However, for some time after the incident, the pain would return after I performed certain lifting or bending tasks. I was in the construction business at the time, and sometimes I would find it hard to get in and out of my truck, move my body in a twisting motion, or even just walk normally.

One morning after feeling this discomfort in my back, I awoke and could barely move. I had experienced intense pain a number of times, but this was the first time I could barely move. The pain was so severe that I literally considered suicide. “Why go on living,” I thought, “when this pain is so intense, and I can’t even get out of bed?” As a student of Christian Science, I had experienced many healings through prayer. Nothing, however, had seemed this serious. But I knew that I could not give in to this thought and that I needed prayerful help.

I crawled out of bed and down the stairs to our phone. I called a Christian Science practitioner for help and told her what was going on in my thinking. She immediately quoted a verse from Psalms: “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord” (118:17).

When she said this, I just knew that suicide was not the way out. I made a mental commitment to “hang in there.” Later, the pain lessened, but I was still unable to move about without discomfort.

After working with the practitioner for a couple of days, I decided instead to call my Christian Science teacher for prayerful treatment. After I described my condition, he replied, “Paul, it’s really very simple. ‘Mind is the source of all movement …’ ” (Mary Baker Eddy, Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 283). He said this with such firm and understanding conviction that I immediately accepted it as true. I just knew beyond any doubt that this was a spiritual fact and that it applied to me right then. 

I could see that because I am a spiritual idea created by God, every single aspect of my life, including movement, originates in divine Mind (another name for God). I also realized that as Mind’s idea, I am not hampered by physical beliefs about moving, but rather am the very expression of God, divine Mind, in action. What appeared to be physicality or a bodily condition had nothing to do with my ability to move. Divine Mind expressing itself in me was the reality.

After hanging up the phone, I felt this spiritual truth working in my consciousness. I was able to stand erect. Later that day I was able to walk a short distance, with only a minimal amount of stiffness in my back. After a day or two, this stiffness disappeared, and I was able to walk and move normally.   

Since this healing (which I prefer to think of as a revealing of my true nature as God’s idea), the pain and other symptoms have not returned, and I have had many years of freedom of movement. As evidence of a complete restoration of movement, a number of years ago I was able to achieve a third degree black belt in Taekwondo, a Korean martial art that requires extraordinary flexibility and body movements, including warm-ups of prolonged back and leg stretching. One action even involves lifting your leg above your head in what is called a drop kick, a feat that would previously have been impossible for me to do.      

For the simple, yet profound, truths of Christian Science, and their application in our lives, I am deeply grateful. 

Paul Sedan 
San Francisco, California, US