One morning I woke up and my wrist hurt, and it hurt more as the day went on. By the next morning, I could barely use my left hand, and my wrist was swollen. A list of reasons for this condition popped into my head. Maybe I had injured myself somehow, or maybe it was because of age. As I mentally rummaged through these suggestions, I realized I wasn’t listening to divine Mind, God, for the truth about this situation.
Understanding how to listen to God, and not mortal mind, was a concept I’d been praying about for months. In my daily study of Christian Science, I’d been reading a lecture titled, “Christian Science: The true Christianity” by Clarence C. Eaton, which was printed in the September 1914 issue of The Christian Science Journal. In the lecture Eaton said our thoughts are often “made up largely of beliefs which have been accepted without investigation or effort, while passing through the natural experiences of life from childhood to adult years.”
I realized that when I woke up that morning, I had opened my thought to believing mortal mind’s suggestions and validations for the condition. Mary Baker Eddy says in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures: “That mortal mind claims to govern every organ of the mortal body, we have overwhelming proof. But this so-called mind is a myth, and must by its own consent yield to Truth” (pp. 151–152).
