I WAS PLANNING to spend that Saturday horseback riding with a friend. But when she dropped the ramp of the horse trailer we were going to use to transport the horses, the loud bang startled my horse, and she bucked me off and ran away. I was thrown to the pavement head first, knocked unconscious, and dragged several hundred feet through an empty parking lot.
I woke up in the intensive care unit of a hospital with a serious concussion. My husband called a Christian Science practitioner to pray with me, and he also asked some members of our branch Church of Christ, Scientist, for their prayerful support. After two days in intensive care—where I was monitored but received no medical treatment—I was released from the hospital at my own request, although much improvement was still needed.
During my first week at home, the practitioner continued to provide Christian Science treatment. And each day I experienced noticeable progress in walking, moving, and speaking. Gradually, my equilibrium and balance returned to normal. Although one of my fingers was sprained and several of my toes felt numb, I felt confident continuing to pray on my own at this point, so I released the practitioner.
I prayed to understand the truth of this statement from Science and Health: "Accidents are unknown to God, or immortal Mind, and we must leave the mortal basis of belief and unite with the one Mind, in order to change the notion of chance to the proper sense of God's unerring direction and thus bring out harmony" (p. 424). I held to the idea that if something was unknown to God, it couldn't have really happened, since God knows all, and He knows nothing but good.
That Sunday I returned to my post in church as Second Reader, and the following day I returned to work, where I found loving support from my co-workers and supervisors. With God's help, I was able to do everything I needed to do, and continued to make progress each day in restoration of memory, physical dexterity, and coordination. However, I couldn't shake the feeling that I was sleepwalking, or in some kind of walking-dream state.
Then one morning, I awoke to the sound of birds singing and these words from a hymn in my thought: "Everlasting arms of Love / Are beneath ..." (Christian Science Hymnal, No. 53). I felt a wonderful sense of peace and of God's love and care for me. I saw I could never have fallen to any place where those arms of divine Love, or God, were not already beneath me. Then I realized that I had rested comfortably and without pain that whole night—for the first time in weeks.
The following weekend, after a short ride on my horse, I decided to go forward with earlier plans to participate in a 50-mile endurance ride, which was to take place only one month after the accident. For many years, I had enjoyed the challenge of endurance riding, and I saw this ride—a long-distance, competitive, timed horseback ride over a prescribed course—as an opportunity to put my prayers into action, rather than sitting home waiting for healing. I felt impelled to go forward with it, and to spend the time expressing and glorifying God.
Just a few hours into the ride, however, I began to wonder if I'd made a mistake. It was challenging for me just to stay in the saddle.
I held to the idea that God could supply the strength, energy, and endurance I needed in any situation, including this ride, but at one point, I didn't think I could go any further. All I wanted to do was lie down and sleep. Because I was still struggling with the feeling of sleepwalking, though, I felt it was important to resist this temptation, continue the ride, and finish in the allotted time. I did end up crossing the finish line in just under the 12-hour time limit, thanking God for taking me all the way.
Soon afterward, while attending the meeting of a Christian Science Students Association, I was struck by the address keynote—a verse from Isaiah: "Awake, awake; put on thy strength, O Zion; put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city" (52:1). This verse became a clarion call to awake to my true, spiritual selfhood—to my identity as God made me. This identity had nothing to do with a physical body, but was the very expression of God Himself—all the qualities of strength, vitality, mobility, and energy, which could never be lost, because they originated in God. Shortly after this realization, the feeling of sleepwalking completely dissipated.
During the next three months, I successfully completed four more 50-mile endurance rides, each of which brought more progress and physical freedom. The sprained finger healed, and feeling returned to my toes. I thought the healing was complete.
Two months later, however, I began to experience severe pain in my back and other places, which made it difficult for me to walk, sit, or lie down. As I prayed to understand my spiritual identity more clearly and to know God's complete supremacy in my life, it became clear to me that these difficulties were related to the riding injuries. Then one day the thought came very strongly: "No residuals." I knew that residuals were extra fees paid for reruns on TV, but saw no connection to my situation.
I finally looked up the word in the dictionary and found other definitions that related to aftereffects or the lingering disabilities that sometimes follow recovery. I realized that what I was feeling was nothing but a belief that there could be something left, some residue of pain, injury, or discomfort that had not been healed. I refuted the notion that there could be anything left over that was not yet healed, any ill effect, side effect, or aftereffect. In short, there could be no residuals since God didn't have any knowledge of the accident to begin with. Within a short time of praying along these lines, I was completely healed. And the healing has remained permanent.
GLIDE, OREGON, US
