Speaker: Our guest today had an experience which clearly shows that God's ever-present help is always at hand to meet our every need. She was healed, through God's power alone, of spinal injuries suffered in an automobile accident when it had appeared that she would be permanently disabled.

Now here is Mrs. Catherine Hesser, of San Diego, California, to tell us of her experience.

Mrs. Hesser: It was in the summer of 1948 when we were on a trip East by automobile. While we were driving through Indiana on a rainy afternoon, the car skidded and went out of control. As I felt the car leave the highway I shouted, "God is our Life!" I guess you might say I did it instinctively, because as a Christian Scientist I'd learned how important it is to turn instantly to God for help in every emergency.

When I regained consciousness, I saw that the car was demolished. I tried to help the others, but found I couldn't move. However, I was not afraid. It came to me that this would be an opportunity to prove what I had been teaching my class in the Christian Science Sunday School about the healing power of God. The others in the car soon regained consciousness too, and I was grateful that they were not seriously hurt.

Since I had no place to stay, I was taken to a nearby hospital. I told the doctors that I would be having help in Christian Science; therefore I would not want any medial treatment. They were very nice and agreed. Their only request was that X rays be taken. After this was done, a doctor told my daughter that my back was broken, and the vertebrae were crushed and out of place. He said, "You must realize your mother will never walk again, and it will be at least eight months before she can leave this hospital." But I refused to accept this, and we called a Christian Science practitioner. Then I began to do a great deal of studying and praying myself.

During those next few days, I had quite a struggle against fear and disappointment and self-pity. But I remembered the story from the Bible, of how Jacob wrestled all one night and finally won the victory. And as I studied what Mary Baker Eddy tells us about Jacob's struggle, in "Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures," I realized that I too had to overcome a material sense of things and see that my true being was spiritual, not dependent on blood, or muscle, or bone, but dependent on God, divine Life.

As I began to realize these things, to really understand them, my progress was rapid. At the end of eight days, more X rays were taken; and they showed the break was healed, and the vertebrae were all in place again. There was a great deal of excitement in the hospital. The doctor was delighted. He said he'd never seen a healing like it, and that I could go home as soon as he could get a brace for me. So he ordered one; and ten days later it arrived, and I left the hospital.

The nineteenth day after the accident, I started walking. Two weeks later we returned home to California. Soon after I arrived home, I did all my own housework and cooking and also ran the gift shop I had there. In just a few days I discarded the brace entirely.

In the gift shop I constantly had to pull out heavy drawers where greeting cards were stored. But my back never gave me any trouble. And, of course, everything has been just fine ever since. I've gone horseback riding, done a lot of hiking and swimming, and I play golf two or three times a week.

To say that I am grateful for a lifetime of God's care and guidance seems hardly enough.

Speaker: Thank you, Mrs. Hesser. You've emphasized your instant decision to turn to God for help and your strong trust in His power.

You know, friends, the divine power on which our guest relied is instantly available. And, as shown in her healing, it can bring deliverance from the most serious situations.

Let's consider briefly what Mrs. Hesser did, because you and I, or anyone, can also experience the healing benefits which come through an understanding of God. Right at the outset, she turned instantly to God. She made a choice, a clear-cut decision. Instead of allowing her thought to be overwhelmed by fear, panic, disaster, she calmly acknowledged the everpresence of God. All the way through, she prayed, studied, and worked to maintain her awareness of God's healing presence and to increase her understanding of Him. As a result, her sense of God's healing presence was strengthened.

This awareness of His presence comes to us all when we gain the true understanding of God. Christian Science shows that when we learn to understand Him as imperishable Life, all-powerful Truth, never-failing Love, when we understand God as divine Spirit, the Supreme Lawgiver, then we gain confidence and trust in God. And as a result, we experience the life-giving, health-giving, strengthening energies of divine Spirit. This was the power experienced by our guest, and it accounts for her speedy restoration to perfect health.

The Bible assures us of God's ever-available help in every circumstance. The Psalmist said: "The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord: he is their strength in the time of trouble. And the Lord shall help them, and deliver them: he shall deliver them from the wicked, and save them, because they trust in him."

And if we turn to the New Testament accounts of Christ Jesus' words and works, we find that he repeatedly demonstrated the divine law of deliverance from trouble. So clear was his understanding of God's ever-presence and all-power that whenever he was confronted with disease and suffering, he was able to wipe out such evils instantly and restore the suffering to health.

And so when we gain a clear understanding of God, we begin to see that His law is a redeeming, saving, healing law, a law to which we can turn in every situation. We begin to realize that man's real being, his real self as the image and likeness of God, is forever unbroken, unharmed. This real self is spiritual, perfect, indestructible, as the perfect idea of perfect God.

In the measure that we understand these spiritual facts, physical suffering and discord are overcome by God's law of harmony, and we are healed.

To human view an accident may seem very real. But we don't have to accept as final the evidence of accident or injury. Our guest proved this. She had a knowledge of these spiritual facts which we've been discussing. That's the reason why she could rely on God's help with such confidence and success.

There's a passage in Science and Health which summarizes this prayerful way of dealing with accidents. On page 397 Mrs. Eddy writes:

"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.

"Now reverse the process. Declare that you are not hurt and understand the reason why, and you will find the ensuing good effects to be in exact proportion to your disbelief in physics, and your fidelity to divine metaphysics, confidence in God as All, which the Scriptures declare Him to be."

The musical selection on the program was Hymn No. 99 from the Christian Science Hymnal (He that hath God his guardian made).