One Evening My Son, Brian, and I were headed out to attend a midweek testimony meeting at our church. Pressed for time, we hurried down the steps from the family room into the garage, neither of us bothering to turn on the light. In the dark, I missed the last step and found myself airborne. I felt a distinct twisting of my body as I abruptly landed full force, face down on the cement floor.
Brian, already at the car, called out, "Mom, are you all right?" Although dazed and in pain, I knew I needed to be all right, so I answered, "Yes." Then I remembered that Mary Baker Eddy described in Science and Health the tendency of thought in the event of an accident: "When an accident happens, you think or exclaim, 'I am hurt!' Your thought is more powerful than your words, more powerful than the accident itself, to make the injury real." She further explained what to do about it: "Now reverse the process. Declare that you are not hurt and understand the reason why, and you will find the ensuing good effects to be in exact proportion to your disbelief in physics, and your fidelity to divine metaphysics, confidence in God as All, which the Scriptures declare Him to be" (p. 397).
By telling my son I was all right in spite of feeling injured, I had begun to "reverse the process" and rest my understanding on my "confidence in God as All." Since, according to the Scriptures, I live, move, and have my being in God (see Acts 17:28), I knew I could never fall out of God's allness. And if from a spiritual standpoint I had never fallen, I could know, too, that I could not have been injured. Although I still felt some pain, I stood up, brushed myself off, and went on to church confident that the healing was in progress.
