In May 2012, I traveled thousands of miles from my home in North America to Brazil, to be a speaker at several different speaking engagements in the country. On the morning of the final speaking engagement, in São Paulo, I found myself in a dilemma because I woke up with a queasy stomach and symptoms of diarrhea. Later that morning I was supposed to travel one hour by bus to a beautiful rural home, where the presentation would take place. Sadly, I told a colleague I would not be able to make the trip because I was feeling unwell.
However, many people in Brazil had either flown to São Paulo or driven long hours from other Brazilian cities just to hear my colleagues and me speak. So, in spite of what I’d told my colleague, and although the symptoms made me want to spend a quiet day relaxing in the hotel room, I decided that now was a good time to think and pray like a Christian Scientist and heal the condition so I could go on the trip.
I began to rebuff the sickly suggestions and take a stand for the truth of my being as completely spiritual. I prayed with a statement by Mary Baker Eddy that I have always liked: “Mentally insist that harmony is the fact, and that sickness is a temporal dream. Realize the presence of health and the fact of harmonious being, until the body corresponds with the normal conditions of health and harmony” (Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, p. 412).
