I woke one night in great discomfort with a gastrointestinal illness. After a difficult night, I found little improvement in the morning.
After studying the weekly Bible Lesson, I turned to my special bookmark in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures to read the next few pages (I had been reading it through, a few pages each day). This question came to my attention: "Can muscles, bones, blood, and nerves rebel against mind in one instance and not in another, and become cramped despite the mental protest?" (p. 160). (Cramps were one of the unpleasant symptoms I had been having.) I had to answer that in truth they could not, since I had learned that Mind controls the functions and elements of man; man has dominion and has the right, indeed the obligation, to protest mentally—or verbally if needed— against anything denying God's all-presence and all-power.
It was helpful to remind myself of the source of my dominion, which is God. As God's likeness, man reflects God's omnipotence and possesses dominion over all the earth. I was not and never had been a suffering mortal, for matter can neither control, restrict, nor interfere with man's harmonious movement. Under God's perfect control, there could be neither inaction, over action, nor painful action.
