For about two years I had a problem with my feet. At times they were quite painful, to the point where I found myself hobbling, barely able to walk. I prayed about this and called for help from a Christian Science practitioner, but the condition did not yield.
Many people offered diagnoses of the trouble and recommended medical approaches for a cure—though there were no guarantees these methods would be effective or fast. As uncomfortable as I was, I knew my answer would come through Christian Science. But when? I was getting weary of the problem, for I loved to walk and run.
Then something happened that gave me a clue to what I needed to see in regard to my feet. It was Thanksgiving, and I wanted to use my good dishes. However, I found that three dinner plates and a candy dish were missing. What could have happened to this missing china? I came to the conclusion that those pieces must have been broken, and whoever was responsible for that had failed to tell me. I was completely convinced of it. I was livid for a time, but prayed to be forgiving.
One day not long after, I was at my mom’s house and found a box that was mine, which I had forgotten to take over to our new house when we had moved nearly two years before. When I opened it, there were the missing dinner plates and the candy dish—all carefully wrapped and unharmed. I was stunned! No matter how convinced I had been to the contrary, the truth was those dishes were never for an instant lost, nor was anyone guilty of breaking them.
As I pondered this experience, I realized that in the same way, neither had my health or freedom of movement ever really been lost. Despite the material appearance to the contrary, the spiritual truth was that I was God’s creation, innocent, whole, complete, and well—right then and always. The claim of sickness, like the claim of the missing china, was only an illusion.
Mary Baker Eddy writes beginning on page 472 of Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures, “We learn in Christian Science that all inharmony of mortal mind or body is illusion, possessing neither reality nor identity though seeming to be real and identical.” And on page 548 she writes: “In this Science, we discover man in the image and likeness of God. We see that man has never lost his spiritual estate and his eternal harmony.”
This lesson of the missing dishes was so significant that it broke through the fear and preoccupation with the disease. As the thought of this condition melted from my consciousness, I was convinced the healing would come. Sometime soon after, I noticed the pain in my feet lessening, and this continued until it was completely gone. That was two years ago, and the difficulty has not returned. With deep gratitude, I can walk and run freely again. Just the other day I spent two hours walking, covering more than ten kilometers (six miles).
Gina McMurchy-Barber
Surrey, British Columbia, Canada
