ABOUT TWO YEARS AGO, while playing tennis I began to experience moderate pain in one of my knees. Over the next several days, the discomfort largely subsided, and I didn't think much more about it. After a few weeks, however, the pain returned worse than before, and my knee was quite swollen. This time there was no improvement. The situation reached the point where I could walk only short distances, but then I could sit no more than a few minutes before I'd have to stand again. I also began to have trouble sleeping. Sometimes I had to get out of bed several times and walk around, and it would often take up to two hours for me to finally get to sleep.
I asked my wife, who is a Christian Science practitioner, to pray for me. Together we prayed with a passage from the first chapter of Genesis, which states, "And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness" (verse 26). As a lifelong Christian Scientist, I have relied many times on this truth as the basis for Christian Science treatment. I knew that my only true activity was to reflect God's goodness and harmony.
In the group of friends I play tennis with, there are three doctors, one of whom is a sports doctor. Several of the players have had injuries, and this has resulted in some lengthy explanations of what caused the injury. At these times, I relied on a statement in Science and Health: "We should relieve our minds from the depressing thought that we have transgressed a material law and must of necessity pay the penalty" (p. 384). In the case of what I was now dealing with, the ideas I found helpful were that God's law of harmony is the only law governing creation, including me, and that this law invalidates false material laws or theories. These spiritual truths enabled me to see past the suggestion that I had physically overextended myself or had inadvertently been playing in a way that was injurious.
