Early last year, I carried my painting supplies down into a friend’s basement and realized that I’d done it without pain. I felt so free that I turned around and went back up and down the stairs again with delight.
While on vacation the year before, I had twisted my knee when I was tipped out of an inner tube in a swimming pool. Walking and stepping up had become painful and difficult. I prayed to know that, as a spiritual idea of God, man doesn’t have material body parts that can be wrenched, and that a knee represents the qualities of flexibility and freedom of movement. Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “All that God imparts moves in accord with Him, reflecting goodness and power” (p. 515). I held to the truth that my movement is an expression of God, Life, and that I move “in accord with Him.” To me this meant that my movement reflects God’s strength and harmony.
By the end of the week, my knee moved with more freedom and ease. But after I returned home from the trip, I often felt painful twinges. At the time, I was receiving frequent automated phone calls that began, “Are you a senior citizen?” and I would quickly hang up. But I was alerted to pray about the belief that pain can be a legitimate accompaniment to my age.
I recalled this citation from Science and Health: “Divine Science rolls back the clouds of error with the light of Truth, and lifts the curtain on man as never born and as never dying, but as coexistent with his creator” (p. 557). I began to affirm that God’s idea does not age and can never deviate from the perfection of reflecting God.
As I continued to pray over the next few weeks, I became more alert to what I was letting into my thinking. One day I saw a television commercial that featured a mother telling her child, “Mommy can find a doctor to fix her knee.” This suggestion that surgery could be the answer impelled me to affirm vigorously that God is in perfect control of my, and everyone’s, health and well-being. I knew that nothing could injure or damage any of God’s children, or cause them to need repair, because we are the evidence of His perfect being.
My knee became less painful, though some soreness remained. As I listened for God to tell me what else needed to change in my thinking, I realized that I had been holding on to—repeating over and over in my thought—the details of some painful situations. I felt my concern about these events was justified on the grounds that I loved the individuals involved. But it occurred to me that I was holding pain in my consciousness, even inviting it in. I prayed more specifically to realize that God is not feeling pain about His creation. As the reflection of the divine Mind, I can know and feel only what He is knowing—and I feel His tender love embracing every idea. The only grounds for me to be concerned would be if I believed that God is not caring for His creation. And I knew that belief to be a lie! It was a relief to let the recognition of God’s mothering love pour into my thought.
The physical relief was also immediate. Within one day of my recognizing God’s care for me, the knee was perfectly strong, normal, and it has remained pain-free.
Jerseyville, Illinois, US
