"If any of you lack wisdom"

JAMES SCHEVENELL

The apostle James admonishes every one who is lacking in wisdom to ask of God, and he couples with the admonition one of the great promises of the Bible. He says: "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him." Through the heeding of this admonition the promise was fulfilled in a healing experience which came to the writer some three and a half years ago.

In attempting to board a fast moving street, car, I fell backward, and the muscles of one leg were given a severe wrenching or straining. The car was stopped and I was enabled to get on, but in addition to the sense of severe pain, great confusion in thought was experienced. This amounted to a veritable storm within consciousness, but above the tumult could be heard the "Peace, be still" of Truth. It was this, together with the use of that great spiritual weapon which Christian Scientists find so effectual whenever error tries to assail them, namely, "the scientific statement of being" (Science and Health, p. 468), which enabled me to leave the car at the appointed place, walk several paces, climb a flight of stairs, and keep a business engagement which had previously been made.

The business call completed, I stepped out upon the street again, but the sense of injury became so great that it seemed as if I would be compelled to signal a passing conveyance and be carried to my room. In this condition I stopped on one of the busy corners in the heart of the business district (this was in one of our great metropolitan cities), and commenced to pray over the situation. It was the noon hour, when the sidewalk was crowded with people and the street with passing vehicles, but amid the surrounding confusion I stood and prayed earnestly, imploringly, and affirmatively, as we understand prayer in Christian Science. This lasted for several minutes, and then a sense of healing came, although it was incomplete, as subsequent events showed.

With this healing there came also the assurance that I could proceed on my way, and a busy afternoon's work was completed. However, as I turned my footsteps homeward later in the afternoon, a great sense of weariness was felt in the injured leg, and as I neared my room, fear took hold upon me, and argued that if I did not have help from a practitioner through the night, I would not be able to resume work the following morning. The memory of a previous accident of the same nature, which had happened somewhat in the same way a few years before I came into Christian Science, seemed to augment my fear; but instead of calling up a practitioner, I obeyed a restraining thought—that the condition was one for me to handle—and so proceeded to my room. Upon reaching it there was experienced a sense of helplessness before the situation, when, with the directness of the spoken word, there came to me the passage from St. James already quoted, "If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God." It was realized at once that this thought was an angel visitant, for on page 581 of Science and Health Mrs. Eddy defines angels as "God's thoughts passing to man." There was no mistaking the message or the messenger.

A complete humbling of self before God immediately took place, together with an earnest, prayerful desire for the wisdom—spiritual understanding—which had seemed lacking. This continued for several minutes; then the angel visitant returned, and as before there was an unmistakable sense of recognition of the divine presence. This time the spiritual leading was for me to take the concordance to Science and Health and look up all the references relating to the overcoming of belief in accidents, and as I read, one after another, those clear statements of scientific spiritual fact I came to that statement of absolute truth found on page 424 of Science and Health, where Mrs. Eddy says, "Under divine Providence there can be no accidents, since there is no room for imperfection in perfection." A full and complete healing was experienced, all fear was destroyed, and I awoke the next morning with scarcely a recollection of the experience of the day before.

Here it may be well to draw a comparison between this painless, spiritual healing, and the results from the other accident to which reference has been made. At that time aid was sought from a medical practitioner. A remedy was applied, which, in its application, was almost as painful as the injury itself. Much pain together with loss of time from business resulted, and there was daily bandaging of the injured limb for a long period of time before a complete cure was realized.

Experiences with error in various forms and in varying degrees come to every Christian Scientist, and these will no doubt continue until we rise above all material belief; but as these experiences are met and overcome with the truth gained through a joint study of the Bible and Science and Health, they always serve to strengthen the foundations of our trust in God, to give us ever greater reasons for the faith, hope, and understanding within us, and prove to us that the teachings of the Bible and Christian Science accord absolutely with each other, and that both spring from the same eternal, spiritual source.

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