I am most grateful for continued demonstrations of the healing power of Christian Science. I am an amateur wood bowl turner, which involves taking a rough block of wood and through various processes fashioning it into a completely turned wooden bowl. Recently I was beginning the process while using a 12" disc sander loaded with coarse 60-grit paper. A large piece of wood escaped out of my hands and was flung off the sander. The large piece of rough wood jammed my finger onto a metal base and tore a large piece of skin off my finger. 

Instantly I knew and declared what Mary Baker Eddy wrote: “Accidents are unknown to God …” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 424). This began my prayer to correct my thinking and heal the human picture. I then cleansed the wound and asked my wife to help bandage it. 

One of the thoughts that had always been reinforced in my practice of Christian Science was to know that right activity cannot be threatened or harmed. As a young Sunday School student, I was told by my teachers that God guides, guards, and governs all our actions. This gave me a sense of peace, since I was fearful that the pain would halt any ability to continue to use the lathe tool to complete fashioning the bowl.

I then thought of a Bible story I had read recently in that week’s Christian Science Bible Lesson, “Truth.” It told of the parable where Christ Jesus speaks of the tares and the wheat (see Matthew 13:24–30). The householder (the owner of the field in which the wheat was to be planted) was embarking on a good task, planting pure seeds of wheat to gain a good crop. I thought that I, too, was involved in a good task—preparing to fashion a wood bowl that would give joy to others when it was finished. Since both were good and right activities, no harm could come. 

In the second part of the parable, the householder’s laborers came and informed him that there were weeds (tares) growing amongst the good wheat. The householder reasoned that the tares were evil, and not part of the original planting. When at harvest time the tares were fully seen as being no part of the wheat, they were removed—bound and burned. The good crop was readily seen as intact, unharmed.

I knew in my immediate case the human picture of being hurt while fashioning a beautiful and useful wood bowl was not something in harmony with God’s laws. In Science and Health we read, “… Science separates the wheat from the tares, through the realization of God as ever present and of man as reflecting the divine likeness” (p. 300). I realized right then that I needed to be aware of any “tare”—any evil presenting itself as a thought that I could be hindered in any way—and to see it as illegitimate. I moved forward with the bowl, and the result was a healed finger. 

I understood as I was praying that far more significant than finishing the bowl was gaining spiritual understanding. Because we are all one with God, reflecting Him, I knew I could count on divine Mind to direct me in every aspect of this activity, from the point of cutting out a block of wood, to designing how it should be shaped, all the way to the final completion of the bowl itself. I am most grateful for the peace and calm that comes in knowing that we can always turn to the teachings of Christian Science—revealing the never-ending, present harmony of God in every aspect of life.

John Hymes 
Longs, South Carolina, US