There are so many things I loved about attending the Christian Science Sunday School: the pure and holy atmosphere, the opportunity to delve into the Bible and the writings of Mary Baker Eddy, and the spiritual lessons I learned. Sunday School was a place where I was encouraged to take these spiritual lessons and apply them to my life.
One such lesson came when I was in middle school. On one particular Sunday, I had a substitute teacher. When I arrived at Sunday School and saw the substitute teacher, I was crushed. I adored my regular Sunday School teacher, who was young, kind, and a good friend of my mother’s. I thought my regular teacher was really cool. The substitute, however, was much older, and, besides, she just wasn’t my regular teacher.
During Sunday School that day, this substitute teacher shared a healing she had had of a long-standing habit of smoking cigarettes. I was surprised because I couldn’t imagine someone like her ever smoking cigarettes. She shared how she was healed with spiritual truths she had learned and applied from the Bible and from Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures by Mary Baker Eddy. That left a deep impression on me. I still adored my regular Sunday School teacher, but now I liked my substitute teacher too.
She discovered that I loved reading the weekly Christian Science Bible Lesson, and she encouraged me to read what comes before and after the citations in the Bible and Science and Health every now and then. She was inspiring me to make those two books my own.
One Sunday, she talked about Mind, one of seven synonyms that Science and Health gives for God. After that particular lesson, I felt as though I understood a little better that Mind is intelligence itself. So, divine intelligence is everywhere and always present because it is Mind. Also, the Bible teaches that man is created in the image and likeness of God (see Genesis 1:26, 27), so man reflects absolute intelligence (or God) all the time.
Sometime after this, I had an opportunity to put into practice what I had learned. Some friends and I were playing a game we used to play, one that perhaps wasn’t very safe but that we, as young boys, enjoyed. In this game one person slides down a hill on a sled, while another stands down the hill, directly in his path. There was a dare to see which one would avert collision first.
I was quickly coming down the hill, packed hard with snow, and I was picking up speed. My friend was standing at the bottom of the hill. He stood completely still, and I was gaining speed, heading right for him.
Just when we would have collided, he jumped out of the way, and I attempted to veer my sled out of the way. But we were very close, and as he jumped, his boot made contact with my head; and I was thrown off my sled. A feeling of intense pain began to surge in my head, but then that Sunday School lesson on Mind came to me. I silently affirmed, “M-I-N-D!” I was affirming my spiritual perfection as an idea of Mind, and the perfection of God and all that He created, knowing that order and harmony were present because they were of God.
Instantly, the pain stopped. I was surprised at this at first, but then I was jubilant and in awe. I was healed because I had realized, in an instant, that God governs all, that God is All, and that there is nothing else. I had claimed God, Mind, divine intelligence, to be real, and I knew that I reflected this Mind. As a result, I was no longer conscious of pain but only of good. I had put into practice the spiritual truths I had learned in Sunday School and was healed.
Whenever I am reminded of this healing, I think of the love and dedication of Sunday School teachers and the spiritual foundation that Sunday School afforded me. I think about God as ever-present Mind and the fact that we are always in our right place, held safe in God’s intelligent care. This experience taught me that my prayers could be prayers of expectation of good, of demonstrating the glory of God, which results in healing.
