Many years ago when we moved house into the countryside, our new property included several acres of woodland. My primary employment at that time was as a partner in a firm of chartered accountants, so involvement in woodland management was to be very much a part-time activity, but I was keen to learn best practices, and part of this expectation was to learn how to use a chain saw correctly.
I signed up for a five-day course, knowing that God is always with me. The first day was to get to know one another and learn the theory, and the next days were to practice cutting down increasing sizes of trees. In the introduction, we all spoke about our backgrounds. There were eight of us, and all of the others were full-time landscape gardeners. When I stated I was a chartered accountant, there were incredulous looks!
The physical exercise was considerable, and we were warned not to participate further if we found it too difficult. By the end of the third day, I had considerable back pain, and doubted very much if I could carry on with what was an expensive course. I wanted to complete it, and I also didn’t want to lose any value of the money invested. I prayed for guidance, and phoned a Christian Science practitioner for assistance through specific prayerful treatment. We talked about the perfection of man, created in God’s image and likeness, subject only to God and not to matter. We considered that pain was no part of what God had created, and therefore had no power to inflict itself. A further thought was that God would always keep and hold me in my right place.
