A week full of healing
Originally appeared online in the teen series Your Healings - June 25, 2024.
The beginning of summer break always meant a week of “camp” at my aunt’s house with my younger sister. Every year, we rode horses, played with her pets, worked on art projects, baked, swam, and learned more about God.
One morning, while we were getting ready for Christian Science Sunday School, my sister and I were warming up Pop-Tarts. She had adjusted the toaster to the highest setting. Without realizing that, I removed one from the toaster, and it broke open. The filling was really hot, and it burned my hands. The large blisters that formed scared me.
When I told my aunt, I knew she was praying for me, and she bandaged my hands. Then we all piled into the car for church.
I remembered how the healings I’d had always made me feel closer to God. This was another opportunity to experience that.
I was upset with my sister. Why had she set the toaster to such a high setting without telling me? Would this prevent me from participating in the fun activities we were planning to do this coming week?
I sat in Sunday School and wished I could be somewhere else. I felt that God had left me to be in pain and that my week was ruined. But as we sang hymns and I listened to the class discussion, the anger melted away. I realized that my sister hadn’t intended to hurt me, and God, who I know is ever present and divine Love, hadn’t left me. I remembered how the healings I’d had always made me feel closer to God. This was another opportunity to experience that. As I cherished these ideas, I was pain-free by the end of the day.
A few days later, my uncle brought home a new puppy. His name was Tuck, and we were excited to play with him. While my sister and I were riding horses one day, Tuck darted out from the other side of the fence and ran around my horse’s hooves. He was on a leash, but before he could be pulled back, the horse stepped on his paw. Tuck was in pain, and my aunt thought his hip and leg might be injured, too, so we brought him inside.
I asked my aunt if I could sit alone with Tuck for a few minutes because I wanted to pray for him. I grabbed my copy of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, a book written by Mary Baker Eddy, who is the Discoverer and Founder of Christian Science. I had read from this book before when I’d needed to pray about something, and I knew that reading from it now would help Tuck. I flipped open to this line: “The divine Love, which made harmless the poisonous viper, which delivered men from the boiling oil, from the fiery furnace, from the jaws of the lion, can heal the sick in every age and triumph over sin and death” (p. 243).
After reading this aloud, I said, “Tuck can be delivered from the hoof of the horse.” I looked at him sitting peacefully beside me, and I knew that he was OK. I felt such a pure, strong love for Tuck. I had never experienced a feeling like that before. It wasn’t a human love for him—it was feeling the presence of divine Love, God. And I knew the horse and Tuck also expressed and could feel Love. I was overwhelmed by this loving divine presence and basked in it as I held Tuck.
A minute later, Tuck jumped down from the chair. He started running in joyful circles around the room. I could tell that his paw was completely fine. I also happened to glance down at my hands, and where a minute before there had been a burn, the skin was now perfectly clear. I had been instantaneously healed, and so had Tuck, just by feeling Love’s presence. I was so happy.
A few days later, while we were sitting around the dining room table, Tuck ran under my chair as I was getting up, and the chair leg caught on that same paw. I was afraid that I had hurt him, but I stopped myself before I could agree with that thought. I had just witnessed such a wonderful healing. How could I not see Tuck as perfect always? There was no room for an accident, as we had just proved. Tuck kept running around just as freely as he had before. The healing was complete, and it has remained that way.
This experience showed me that healing doesn’t have to take time. It can even be instantaneous. Just feeling God’s presence can be enough.