About four years ago my wife and I were preparing for a vacation of more than three weeks in Hawaii. A sister was to accompany us. Five days before our departure I had a business errand to perform. I took a shortcut to my destination, jumping onto a steep bank. When my left foot hit the bank, I felt a tearing and pain in my leg.
Immediately I declared that there are no accidents in the infinite harmony of Mind's universe. Matter cannot swell; life, intelligence, and true substance are not in matter. I made other statements of scientific truth for a few seconds, then I somehow reached the top of the bank and finished my errand. After I returned to the car many claims of error piled into my thought. "You can't go on the trip! It will be impossible for you to take the many movies and slides planned, or to climb or hike." Immediately I reversed this claim, knowing that evil had no power to deprive me of this joyful activity, which we had prayed about in all our preparations. I refused to accept the belief that I could be a source of disappointment to my wife and sister, or could in any manner be kept from full enjoyment of this trip.
I had been, for a number of years earlier, an athletic trainer for high school teams and a college team. A number of injuries, of the type I was feeling, had been sustained by the athletes. These always took many weeks to heal with material aid. One of the medical requirements had been to keep completely off the injured leg. In my prayer now, I saw that time has nothing to do with a Christian Science healing, since the problem is never a physical one but a false concept of the status of man, God's idea. The need was to negate this false concept and bring into view the true concept of man as never leaving the harmony and perfection of divine Mind, never needing a long struggle back to harmony and health. Mrs. Eddy says (Science and Health, pp. 470-471), "The relations of God and man, divine Principle and idea, are indestructible in Science; and Science knows no lapse from nor return to harmony, but holds the divine order or spiritual law, in which God and all that He creates are perfect and eternal, to have remained unchanged in its eternal history."
