'Let God do the work'

Emelie passes the ball forward as center midfielder.

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Courtesy photo

I was so excited! We’d won our soccer game to make our team record 12 wins and 3 losses, and to top it off, I’d scored a goal.

In joyful spirit, I was home doing my homework after the game. Suddenly my foot was in a lot of pain. I couldn’t remember hurting it, so my initial reaction was confusion. 

Then, when my foot became increasingly painful, I went downstairs to find my mom and ask if she could please read me an article on Christian Science. We sat down in her room and she got out one of her favorite articles from the Sentinel and began reading. I didn’t remember a single word, though, since my thought was completely occupied with the pain. 

My mom stopped reading as soon as she could tell I was having trouble thinking clearly. She comforted me and told me, “Eme, we need to get rid of this fear.” I began to cry, not only because I was afraid of the issue not going away, but also because we had another soccer game the following day and I wanted to feel 100 percent. 

We decided to call a Christian Science practitioner, and though I don’t remember anything particular that she said, I do remember how I felt the calm conviction in her voice as she spoke. It was getting late, so my mom suggested I move to the couch and listen to recordings of hymns from the Christian Science Hymnal. 

I tried to get up off the bed, but I couldn’t really walk. I felt so limited and restricted. Then I realized this was exactly what mortal mind was trying to tell me. When I took another step, I realized that divine Mind, God, was in control, not the pain. Mind was the only power. To complete this thought, once I was helped to the couch, my mom said to me that I could, “Let God do the work.” That’s when things fell into place. I realized that this was not my work to do, but God’s. I had to keep my thought open to His goodness and healing power, which I most definitely was doing, and God would do the rest. 

I was not happy for any selfish reason, but because our team had been really working together.

It reminded me of something from an article, within a book, that my coach gave our soccer team. I read it before each game to get my thought on track. It talks about how, if your work is becoming a burden, then you need to stop and put the responsibility in God’s hands, because that’s really where it belongs. You can let go of the burden before you start up your work again because a feeling of “heaviness” doesn’t give glory to God (see Mary Kimball Morgan, Education at The Principia, p. 222). I was able to drop the burden and let God take care of me. I fell asleep listening to hymns. The following morning, I woke up with much less pain and was able to walk fine. I still wanted to play in that afternoon’s game, but I knew if I did, I would need to be able to play properly in order to give the most to my team. 

I kept going about my day, and then about mid-way through, I got an e-mail from the practitioner I was working with. She gave me a quote from Mary Baker Eddy’s Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures to think about: “The sinless joy,—the perfect harmony and immortality of Life, possessing unlimited divine beauty and goodness without a single bodily pleasure or pain,—constitutes the only veritable, indestructible man, whose being is spiritual. This state of existence is scientific and intact …” (p. 76). The first part of the quote mentioned, “sinless joy.” That was what I had been experiencing before the pain, I realized. I was not happy for any selfish reason, but because our team had been really working together on the field, and this was special. We were expressing God’s harmony and nothing could disturb that expression. And by expressing sinless joy, this meant I could possess (from the next part of the quote) “goodness without a single bodily … pain.” There was no way that an injury was going to override these facts. And I didn’t have to expect just partial healing, either.

In the locker room later on, I continued to pray and work with lots of truths that had been shared with me. Our game began, and I was so focused on my responsibilities on the field that I wasn’t aware of any pain—it soon dissolved completely and didn’t return. I saw that I had an understanding of God and His truthful spiritual facts always within me. 

The game turned out to be one of our team’s best, and it was the greatest feeling in the world to know that we all gave our best effort for each other’s success. I didn’t have an issue with my foot again, and I was so grateful for this quick and powerful healing.