One day I was doing spring-cleaning and had finally reached the last room yet undone. Since I could not reach the very top of the doorframe I was washing, I stood on the edge of an armchair instead of taking the time to get a ladder. Suddenly the chair tipped over and I went crashing down. The impact of my chest with the arm of that chair was forceful.
The pain was intense and overwhelming, and it took my breath away. I lay on my bed and tried to clear my thought and pray. Gradually the ability to think a bit more clearly came. For three days prior to this moment, I had made a consecrated study of God's omnipotence as revealed in Christian Science. Surely, I reasoned, there must be something from that study I can reach for to help me now. Then something did come into focus—a paragraph from Science and Health that I had memorized long ago: "When the illusion of sickness or sin tempts you, cling steadfastly to God and His idea. Allow nothing but His likeness to abide in your thought. Let neither fear nor doubt overshadow your clear sense and calm trust, that the recognition of life harmonious—as Life eternally is—can destroy any painful sense of, or belief in, that which Life is not" (p. 495). I mentally paraphrased it thus: "When the illusion of sickness or sin or pain or the belief of an accident tempts me, then I must cling steadfastly to God and His idea and allow absolutely nothing but His likeness to abide in my thought. There must be neither fear nor doubt."
And as I mentally pushed out the fear and "clung steadfastly" to God, I found that other thoughts began to take shape—thoughts that I had been busy with those previous three days. I knew that God's power and authority are manifested in human experience, and that divine Spirit overcomes material forces when man humbly acknowledges God's complete control (and lying there I felt humble, all right!).
