It was one of those days when I had many errands to run before flying out of town early the next morning. I hurried into a little gift boutique, where I noticed a pretty purse displayed high up on a glass shelf. As I reached up to admire it, the shelf, which was not anchored, came down and its corner landed on my foot. I was wearing sandals.

Rewind for a minute. Earlier that morning, I had been praying to understand myself and my true substance as God’s spiritual idea instead of a limited, vulnerable mortal with material body parts that could break down, be injured, or die. It’s a topic that has been of interest to me for a long time, and that particular morning I was trying to think it through more deeply. 

I had been reading Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, which helped me better understand this subject. Its author, Mary Baker Eddy, explains that God, divine Love, fills all space and that His omnipresence constitutes all being, including my being. 

Mrs. Eddy uses the word man as a term for each of us as God’s child, and in Science and Health she asks the question “What is substance?” Then she answers: “Substance is that which is eternal and incapable of discord and decay. Truth, Life, and Love are substance, as the Scriptures use this word in Hebrews: ‘The substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.’ Spirit, the synonym of Mind, Soul, or God, is the only real substance. The spiritual universe, including individual man, is a compound idea, reflecting the divine substance of Spirit” (p. 468).

What’s so wonderful about Mrs. Eddy’s explanation of substance is that this spiritual understanding of it can bring healing into our own lives. She moved the concept of spiritual substance out of mere theological theory by discovering its practical reality and application. Mrs. Eddy’s firm conviction that man’s substance is Spirit and is always intact enabled her to heal all kinds of physical ailments, including both chronic and acute diseases.

Healing results require a shift in our perception of the makeup of our being.

Mrs. Eddy expected her students to be able to grasp her discovery of true substance and to heal. Healing results, however, require a shift in our perception of the makeup of our being. To think of ourselves as divine Mind’s idea, having only the inextinguishable substance of Spirit, requires a reliance on spiritual sense and a turning away from material sense, because the physical senses portray substance as material and subject to the so-called laws of nonintelligent matter instead of to the all-powerful laws of Love. By letting our thought be spiritually transformed and inspired, we can discern that the substance of eternal Life cannot malfunction or deteriorate, nor can it be injured, diseased, or threatened by age.

That’s why I found myself sitting on the floor of the boutique actually smiling. As I saw my foot bleeding heavily, I thought to myself: “That blood cannot possibly be me! That clearly is not my substance, which is always Spirit and cannot leave me.”

I felt completely safe and found myself saying to the boutique owner: “I’m just fine. Really, I am OK.” Still, she was concerned and called the EMS (emergency medical service), but by the time they got there a few minutes later, the bleeding had stopped. They cleaned and bandaged my foot, recommended getting some medication for the pain and prevention of infection, and wanted to take me to a nearby hospital emergency room. I thanked them, signed some papers, and assured them I would be wise.

Divine Science reveals clearly that substance is forever intact and incapable of being severed or infected. Praying with the understanding that God, Spirit, is the only real substance and is All, rules out of human consciousness the ignorance of God that produces all fear and suffering. I remember thinking: “You just can’t get around ‘All.’ God, Spirit, is all substance. Period.”

Yet, acknowledging these scientific facts was not just an intellectual exercise. The Bible promises, “Draw nigh to God, and he will draw nigh to you” (James 4:8). In that moment, I felt very close to God, my Father-Mother. I felt the power of His healing truth, the Christ, comforting me and revealing the indestructible nature of man’s true substance. The Christ was powerfully displacing the false belief of existence in matter and revealing the healthy, whole substance that was always mine as God’s spiritual idea.

Within a couple of hours, the boutique owner’s sister called to talk with me. I reassured her that no legal action would be taken, that no one needed to feel guilty about the unanchored shelf, and that I was praying to understand that since God is the source of all substance, none of us could be touched—either physically or financially. 

When a friend remarked, “Well, at least she could have given you the purse,” I explained that it was a very expensive purse and there was no need for the small shop to suffer that kind of loss. In this demonstration, or healing, the same God, Spirit, who held my substance intact, held the shop owner’s financial well-being intact, too. All good is safe and protected in God, divine Love.

As for the practical care of my foot, my flight took me into a nearby town, which had a Christian Science nursing facility with Christian Science nurses available to help. The Christian Science nurse is a practical provision Mrs. Eddy established in the early 1900s. She knew there might be times when we would need aid while praying our way to healing. I made an appointment to have my foot cared for by a Christian Science nurse when I arrived. That evening, I slept with no pain.

Divine Science reveals clearly that substance is forever intact and incapable of being severed or infected.

With my foot covered and still swollen, I cozied up on the plane the following morning with that month’s issue of The Christian Science Journal, a magazine that is always filled with spiritual truths confirming the power of God and the spiritual nature of man as His reflection. It includes testimonies of those who were healed through Christian Science treatment and articles that show how the teachings of Christ Jesus led his disciples, and lead his followers today, to understand and to exercise our God-given divine authority to overcome the many false scenarios resulting from the belief in evil, which he actually called “a liar” (John 8:44). 

I realized that the healing was not about time but about yielding mentally—yielding to the divinely scientific facts of life, intelligence, and substance, which are forever maintained and sustained in Spirit. As I considered Mrs. Eddy’s question “Which ought to be substance to us,—the erring, changing, and dying, the mutable and mortal, or the unerring, immutable, and immortal?” (Science and Health, pp. 278–279), I literally felt the swelling disappear.

When the Christian Science nurse in the outpatient room took off the bandage, I was looking away from my foot. She asked, “Well, what would you like me to do?”

“If you could just clean it up, that would be great,” I said.

“I can put a band-aid on your foot if you would like, but there is nothing there. If I were not a Christian Scientist and you told me that EMS was working on you less than 24 hours ago, I would not have believed you.” She rejoiced with me.

Here’s the icing on this cake: When I shared this experience with a dear friend a few days later, she said, “Oh, you have to have that purse to celebrate your healing!” She sent me a check in the mail with specific directions to “go buy it.” 

When I walked into the gift boutique, the owner greeted me, gave me a big hug, laughed teasingly, and said, “Wait! What kind of shoes do you have on?” I was wearing sandals again but replied with joy, “My feet are safe, and we are safe.” We both felt loved, safe, and intact.