One afternoon, I received a call at the office from the woman who cares for our children while I am away, telling me that one of our sons had been involved in a serious accident in the lobby of our apartment building. She said that a neighbor had called a local physician. Also the police had brought an ambulance, and they wanted to take the child away immediately. She said to me, "They say he's in a bad way." The woman is a dedicated Christian Scientist. So I asked her to take the boy upstairs to our apartment and added that I would come home immediately.
As I entered a taxi, I asked the driver please to hurry since my son had been in an accident. He said: "Lady, it's rush hour, I can't hurry. But see if you can't relax; he'll be all right. The doctor's with him, isn't he?"
It came to me with a flood of joy that of course he was all right! He was not in strange hands, critical and uncomprehending. As Christian Scientists, we had as our Physician omnipotent God, and God was indeed with the boy. The Christ Science was already operating and acting as the occasion required. I saw too that since God is our universal Father-Mother, the boy's Mother was with him, embracing him in a perimeter of comfort, understanding, and care.
Mrs. Eddy writes (Science and Health, pp. 203, 204): "God, divine good, does not kill a man in order to give him eternal Life, for God alone is man's life. God is at once the centre and circumference of being." I saw that divine Mind was the center of the boy's being, generating his life and consciousness, and supporting his health. And I saw that Love was the circumference of his being and was reflected by ideas of love, spirituality, understanding, and harmony. I saw the boy surrounded by individuals under Love's control, doing the will of God. These thoughts brought deep comfort and annulled panic.
Throughout the whole experience, we were embraced in an atmosphere of love. When I arrived at the building, I was greeted downstairs by warm friendship. Our other children had been taken from the scene by a friend, leaving our housekeeper free to care for the boy.
When I entered our apartment, I dismissed the police officers. The doctor took me to the unconscious boy, who had sustained external and internal head injuries, and showed me certain symptoms which, he said, indicated unmistakably that if we did not permit the boy to undergo immediate surgery, we would lose him before morning. He told me what hospital would be the best one to call, and he admonished, "Get somebody good." I thanked him and dismissed him.
As I held the little fellow on my lap, I tried to lift my thought to Spirit and away from the evidence before me. I spoke audibly to him of Truth and felt a conviction that he could hear me. The temptation to watch his breathing was almost overwhelming, and I knew I had to handle that first.
I saw that the human body was not an automatic machine, wound up at birth, only to run down and die, or to be broken in the meantime by accident like some mindless toy. I saw that life is not in the automatic action of lungs but in the action of Spirit and that the human manifestation of life results from the presence of divine Life. It was clear to me that it is the Christ, not physical law, which animates human consciousness and body and that human will had not created the boy. He was not dependent upon a personal sense of mother to defend him. He belonged to divine Life.
Shortly he stirred and became conscious. Within the hour, when the woman who had stood by so bravely was leaving for home, he rose and walked to the door to hug her.
During the night his father, his grandfather, and I took turns sitting by the boy's bedside, and we engaged the help of a practitioner. The child rested quietly and awakened fully conscious and alert in the morning. We also engaged the services of a Christian Science nurse to help us with the practical aspects of the case, and we can never find words to express our gratitude for her gentle efficiency and spiritual confidence. We feel deeply grateful for the dear practitioner whose treatment was strong and unyielding.
Though our son's gain in strength was steady, I felt that we were almost on display in the neighborhood, and I longed to be away so that the healing could take place in privacy and quiet. The way opened up to take the family to visit the other grandparents in another city. Within a week, the boy was out horseback riding, swimming, and fishing. Two weeks later, when we returned home, the healing was evident, and he greeted his playmates with joy.
As we overcame the belief of having gone through a shocking experience, all traces of the accident disappeared. Several months later, we took the boy to a physician for a physical examination required for school entrance in our state. He was given a clean bill of health. Since that time, he has completed more than three very active and successful years of school.
This experience has meant much to our family. To have seen God's incisive action in saving our boy has helped to free us further from fears for all our children. It has indeed increased our faith in His presence and power and has confirmed our hope in His plan of salvation for all the children of men. We found that to trust our children to the hands of spiritual understanding of, faith in, and love for God is neither insanity nor heroism; it is practical Christianity.
Job in his distress said (1:21), "The Lord gave, and the Lord hath taken away." In the light of Christian Science, we understand that God's taking away involves no destruction of life, love, and happiness. Through divine Science and Christian healing, God gives life and takes away sin, sickness, and death.
Our gratitude for Christ Jesus, our dear Master, and for Mrs. Eddy and her pure unselfed life is unbounded.— New York, New York.
