"RISE UP AND WALK, take up your bed./With these few words the sickness fled" (Peter B. Allen, Christian Science Hymnal Supplement, No. 453). The words and melody of this new hymn came to me as I lay in bed unable to move without pain. Those few words awakened me from the many suggestions of fear that had come to me in various ways. I had an airplane ticket to fly to a meeting in three weeks. Would I be able to walk? Would I be able to sit for the three-hour flight? How would I manage luggage, etc.?
I didn't know what was going on or what the cause was, but it had come to me that I was experiencing some kind of internal inflammation. I'd had difficulty moving for three weeks. When walking, I was able to move only a few inches at a time because of the pain. I was to play the organ for church the next Wednesday. Would I be able to get down from the organ bench, and back to it for the last hymn?
Now, after being awakened with the hymn (in my head) to "Rise up and walk..." I reached out to God in prayer: "Dear Father, hear my prayer. You are the only source of all things. There is no other source of good. Error has no source or origin, so it has no place. I am here receiving Your grand creation, for You, dear Father, hold me in Your love-filled arms. I am yielding to You alone, and grateful for You as the source of all right activity. Thank You, dear Father-Mother God. I am Your loved child, right here with You."
