I've had many quick healings in Christian Science, from prayer alone. But I've also experienced wonderful healings that demanded I stay with my prayer for a longer period of time. One of those occurred five years ago when I severely injured my foot and ankle. I felt compelled at the time to dig deep to discover God's care and intelligent direction; not to allow pain, incapacity, or time, to concern me before a complete healing came about—and to find an even greater understanding of what really heals.

In the fall of 2004, my husband and I were out walking along the edge of a cascading brook in New Hampshire when I caught my foot between two large slippery rocks. As I fell, I heard several cracking sounds and felt severe pain. With some effort, my husband and a passerby were able to help me up. Using their shoulders as crutches, I hopped back to the car. My foot and ankle became very swollen and discolored. I couldn't move them or put any weight on them. It seemed certain that bones had been broken.

As we started home, I called a Christian Science practitioner to help me pray. She talked about the fact that I could never be separate from God or His goodness, and shared part of a quote from Mary Baker Eddy's Science and Health—one that I wouldn't have expected. Here's the entire statement: "The wintry blasts of earth may uproot the flowers of affection, and scatter them to the winds; but this severance of fleshly ties serves to unite thought more closely to God, for Love supports the struggling heart until it ceases to sigh over the world and begins to unfold its wings for heaven" (p. 57). Surprising as those words seemed, I understood them immediately. I hadn't mentioned it, but I'd been preoccupied with the feeling that I was somehow separated or severed from good, from God and His love. I saw that the condition of my ankle was actually linked to this state of thought.

That made sense to me. I was accustomed to seeing things from a mental and spiritual perspective, an essential starting point for healing. I understood from the Bible that God, Spirit, is the source of all wisdom and intelligence; "he is in one mind" as the book of Job says (23:13). I knew God to be the only Creator, creating each of us in and of His own nature, spiritual. So with that in mind, I felt the solution was not going to be found in fixing the bones in my foot and ankle, but in changing how I was thinking and what I accepted as true.

In this case, the suggestion needed to go that I was somehow separated from good and painless perfection. And I needed to begin by yielding to my unbroken relationship with God. God is unchangeable good, according to the Bible, and His sons and daughters are actually one with Him, made in His own image and likeness (see Gen. 1:26, 27). The truth was I could no more be parted from God, or good, than my own image in a mirror could be separated from me!

Past experiences had taught me that this kind of Christianly scientific prayer brings certain restoration to the body. So I kept praying along these lines after we got home. I studied passages from the Bible and Science and Health. I particularly appreciated that "when we realize that Life is Spirit, never in nor of matter, this understanding will expand into self-completeness, finding all in God, good, and needing no other consciousness" (Science and Health, p. 264). This truth reinforced my initial feeling that my own completeness would be found in a deeper understanding of God and my relationship to Him, rather than in adjusting matter.

I also appreciated the instruction to "leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind" when dealing through prayer with the effects of accidents (Science and Health, p. 424). I realized that if I was praying for healing by pondering my perfection as God's likeness, while looking at my ankle to see if it was improving, I was not leaving that mortal basis.

I saw too that even if I was careful not to look at my ankle, but still thinking, "If only I could move it this way or that way," I was not actually leaving the belief that I lived in matter. I needed to think out from God, the divine basis, exclusively.

One afternoon I had an experience that helped me do that. I was in a recliner when I found myself taking a catnap and having a vivid dream of slipping on an icy sidewalk. Just as I was about to come crashing down, I jerked awake. And I thought, "Oh, I didn't have that fall; I'm sitting in this chair." I realized that I could think of the fall in New Hampshire in the same way. In reality I didn't really have that fall either! I remembered a Psalm "When I said, My foot slippeth; thy mercy, O Lord, held me up" (Ps. 94:18). And I thought, "If Thy mercy, O Lord, held me up, then I didn't slip."

It was especially helpful to be alert about my unbroken relationship to God each morning, since getting out of bed was quite difficult and painful. One morning as I struggled to make my way to the bathroom using crutches, a conviction welled up: You won't get me.

In other words, despite appearances, despite the pain, my love for God and my conviction that I was His perfect unchanged likeness, was not going to be shaken. This conviction strengthened me. Then I came across this: "In Science, all being is eternal, spiritual, perfect, harmonious in every action" (Science and Health, p. 407). After that, each day when I got up, I held to that truth—it gave me dominion over the pain, which lessened until it finally disappeared within about two weeks.

During this time I saw how important it was to be persistent in my prayers. Digging into Science and Health for fresh ideas was really pure joy—and it kept me from being discouraged. I've always approached reading it as if each idea is a special treasure. So rather than laboriously taking some metaphysical medicine with the aim of getting better, I immediately took the book as the treasure I've found it to be. I dived right in, paused, reread, and pondered portions that moved me.

As I read, I found myself enlightened in new ways. In my joy and interest in the ideas, I lost track of time. In fact, I lost track of everything, except the ideas. They became so real to me. For example, one day I came across the Welsh definition of man as "that which rises up" (p. 525). It thrilled me to ponder this as defining my very nature. And when I'd put the book down, I'd feel refreshed, even transformed. I'd discovered again that to read Science and Health that way is to experience true healing.

The practitioner continued to pray with me, and she'd often share ideas. One day she quoted from Psalms, "He keepeth all his bones: not one of them is broken" (34:20). And she added, "I believe God." All day long I thought about that. Did I believe God? I needed to do more than just consider the truth as I prayed. I needed to admit it—to actually accept that it was true.

I also recognized that any urge to meditate on anything other than the spiritual—such as my tendency to condemn myself for thinking for a moment I could be away from good, for whatever reason—is what Mary Baker Eddy called the effect of animal magnetism. For example, she wrote that "these 'ways that are vain' are the inventions of animal magnetism ..." (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 78). Giving in to its attraction would not promote healing. False, unproductive, negative thoughts act like a magnet to pull one away from Godlike thinking, toward the animal—the opposite to spiritual or enlightened thinking. I recognized more than ever that animal magnetism is merely a mental pull away from God and His thoughts.

I reasoned with new conviction that since God is the only Mind and His thoughts are perfect, then God alone could influence me.

Once I understood that I was being used by animal magnetism when replaying the past, I found I could stop such thoughts. I could say, "Oh no, you are not mine. My thoughts come from God. You are nothing and nowhere, and you won't get me." Claiming my dominion in this way helped free me, until I was no longer pulled in this way.

During this time I had a Christian Science nurse come every few days to keep the ankle clean and bandaged. She knew how to gently move my foot, and having someone else care for and cover it meant that I did not need to look at it. And there was steady physical progress. I felt adjustments painlessly taking place in my foot and ankle. By the end of the month not only was the pain completely gone but the bones in both my foot and ankle—which had appeared out of place—were back in alignment and looked completely normal. As a matter of fact, I could wear shoes, walk unaided, and resume my normal activities.

Still, there was one lingering difficulty that persisted for several months. At night I would notice some swelling in my lower leg. But I found that I wasn't discouraged—I'm sure because of the joy I'd found in Science and Health. And I just kept praying and listening for God's ideas.

Finally I realized that I hadn't fully moved forward, mentally. Although I no longer felt separate from God, I hadn't let go of the idea that I had somehow caused that feeling of separation from good in the first place. Suddenly I saw the final step that needed to be taken—I needed to see out from God's perspective on this issue as well as the physical. As divine Love's precious daughter, I couldn't separate myself from God; I'd never left Love's direction and care. It was time to let myself treasure my true nature as forever good. Once I did this, the swelling stopped and the healing was complete. In the five years since, I have had no further trouble of any kind, no stiffness, pain, or swelling.

Each step along the way deepened my conviction that recognizing God's presence and power—and my unbroken connection to that—is what really heals.

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