"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."
The word source, and God as the only source, kept coming to me. One dictionary defines source as "first cause; original; that which gives rise to any thing." Yes, I wanted to rise up and walk. God was my source and resource of all that I needed.
I felt closer to God. Further in the hymn are the words, "You are God's purpose, His great design." So, how could there be anything wrong with "His great design" to stop my proper action and activity. It continues: "Holding your thought to the good and the true,/Spirit will form you anew." And then the refrain begins: "Rise up and walk! God made you free, born of His liberty." God is the source of all liberty. It was time for me to experience my true spiritual selfhood. What wasn't part of His original perfection couldn't be part of me, since I reflect Him. The falsities of mortal beliefs could drop away as I recognized God as the only true source of my identity.
The condition appeared to be real, but I declared that this so-called error had no source and came from nowhere. It couldn't hang on to me, a spiritual idea. Mary Baker Eddy tells what reduces inflammation on pages 180–181 of Science and Health: "To reduce inflammation, dissolve a tumor, or cure organic disease, I have found divine Truth more potent than all lower remedies. And why not, since Mind, God, is the source and condition of all existence?"
I refused to be influenced, recognizing the power of Mrs. Eddy's instruction, "He who refuses to be influenced by any but the divine Mind, commits his way to God, and rises superior to suggestions from an evil source." I rejoiced in gratitude with her words as she later continued: "Thank God! this evil can be resisted by true Christianity. Divine Love is our hope, strength, and shield. We have nothing to fear when Love is at the helm of thought, but everything to enjoy on earth and in heaven" (Miscellaneous Writings 1883–1896, p. 113).
In the next few moments, I was able to rise out of bed effortlessly. I was free. There was no period of recuperation because God was the source of my being. I had been grounded in His care all along while the physical senses were suggesting pain. I refused to be influenced, knowing that God was the only source and resource of my spiritual care.
This experience was a clear illustration for me that "if men understood their real spiritual source to be all blessedness, they would struggle for recourse to the spiritual and be at peace; ..." (Science and Health, p. 329).
The divine call to "Rise up and walk" proved the blessedness of God as the one and only source of all good.
HOUSTON, TEXAS, US
