My wife and I were playing with a kitten when it suddenly bit my finger. I yelled, “Ouch!” Then, as I stared at my finger, my wife shook her head and said, “For someone who is usually affirming that we are safe in God’s care, you’re sure making a big deal out of a little pain.” 

My wife wasn’t being mean. She was encouraging me to employ the spiritual understanding that Christian Scientists utilize in helping and healing themselves and others. Recognizing how God, Spirit, has made us—spiritually—enables us to free ourselves from pain by removing its usual causes: fear, ignorance, and sin. Yet instead of accepting her words as encouraging, I thought, “If that’s what she thinks, then I just won’t tell her the next time I’m in pain.”

That prideful thought was rebuked the very next morning when, although the pain from the kitten’s bite was gone, I awoke with extreme and inexplicable shoulder pain. I couldn’t hide it. And after my wife had assisted me in putting on my shirt and jacket, I phoned a Christian Science practitioner for help through prayer.