During a bus tour in November 1999, I fell while carrying my luggage in a hotel. It was a hard fall and so painful that I felt it wise to go to the emergency room. The diagnosis was a broken shoulder.
I decided to have the bone set, which involved an operation. A metal implant about six inches long was put into the shoulder, but during the ensuing therapy it was evident that something was wrong. The doctor said the operation would have to be redone. At that moment, I decided that I wanted to put my trust in God. I had been a Christian Scientist all my life and I knew that God is all-powerful. If God is all-powerful, I thought, how can matter—which has no intelligence, life or being—be any help to me? It was clear to me that it could not. So I decided not to have the second operation, but to rely on Christian Science treatment instead.
I called a Christian Science practitioner to pray with me and was very diligent in studying the weekly Bible Lesson (found in the Christian Science Quarterly) and other Christian Science literature. This citation by Mary Baker Eddy was especially important to me: "A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive" (Science and Health, p. 463). It helped me to realize, first, that I am a spiritual idea, and not a vulnerable mortal. This meant that I could only go forward, progress, in my spiritual understanding of God and His goodness. And I saw that filling my consciousness with such goodness would take away anything from my experience that was not right.
