CHRISTIAN SCIENCE HEALING has been practiced in my family for six generations. I could recount healing after healing, and each has its own special place in my spiritual growth. However, one that stands out to me was a painful condition with my hip that developed when I was in law school.
Running has always been a part of my life, and in law school I ran regularly as a release from the rigors and demands of my study, and to use this time to pray and think. However, over a period of several months, I experienced pain in my hip that made it very difficult to run. I didn't want to give in to the discomfort and would often just will myself through these runs. While I would pray about the condition, these prayers were mostly consumed with trying to get rid of the pain. Then, during a run when the discomfort was particularly challenging, I learned a significant lesson about prayer and Christian Science healing.
I prayed "on the run," and it became very clear to me that healing doesn't result from trying to get rid of pain or sickness or any unpleasant condition through prayer. Rather, healing results from our clearer understanding of our already perfect, spiritual nature. Prayer helps us reach that higher level of spiritual understanding at which point sickness and pain lose their reality in consciousness and simply disappear.
