When I was a teenager, I injured my ankle playing basketball. The medical prediction from X-rays was that, due to the severity of the injury, my ankle would never fully recover its original strength and capacity for movement. And for several years, this seemed to be the case. I spent many weeks on crutches and had to constantly support my foot by wrapping it tightly whenever I did participate in sports. Reinjuries were not uncommon and were very discouraging.
Shortly after one of these reinjuries, however, I became acquainted with Christian Science through a friend. He invited me to the Christian Science Sunday School he attended. During our class discussion there, I was struck by the idea of God being wholly good. This definition of God hit home for me. I had always hoped to find some validation of good as the natural order of life. It seemed to me that the real essence of being should be harmony, not conflict. And this included the physical side of life as well as the mental. It felt natural to accept this idea—that all of God's creation, including each one of His children, had been designed to be good, to feel good, to have good.
This was a transforming idea, and I felt I could demonstrate it in my own life. I saw that I no longer had to accept a physical restriction as a permanent part of me. I could stand on the spiritual facts of being, literally and figuratively, and feel empowered. Because divine good is supreme, I could expect to see that borne out in my life, instead of acquiescing to a mortal, limited view of myself.
