A FEW DAYS BEFORE I was to begin an important series of meetings, I just avoided an accident on my bike by carefully placing my right foot in a safe spot as my bike fell. The next day, I slipped and fell on the stairs in my house. This time, I badly injured the same ankle. I had had many healings through prayer over the years—many of them quick, even immediate—so it was natural for me to pray about this situation. Yet this healing didn't come right away. About five days after the first meeting, there still hadn't been any improvement.
At this point I realized that I needed to be more specific in my prayers. I had mostly been thinking about how important it was to be in good shape for the meetings. Sure, I had included concerns about the ankle in my morning prayers, but I hadn't really become conscious of my unbroken relationship to God. I hadn't seen past the common assumptions about accidents to the spiritual fact that my relationship with divine God, who is Love, could never be interrupted.
I went into the bedroom to pray. Immediately, I thought of a quote from Science and Health that describes the role of one of the angels mentioned in the Bible: "Gabriel has the more quiet task of imparting a sense of the ever-presence of ministering Love. . . . The Gabriel of His presence has no contests." Science and Health, p. 567.
