Our son was attending a camp for Christian Scientists one summer, when I received a call that while on a rock climbing trip, he had been bitten by a rattlesnake. I was away from home, driving in another state, when the call came in, and at first I felt a sense of panic as I called the few Christian Science practitioners whose numbers were in my cellphone. I couldn’t reach anyone initially, but the panic gave way to calm prayer. In raising our three children, I had always felt it natural to pray to recognize the God-given wellbeing they fundamentally possess.
What came to mind almost immediately was the first verse of Hymn 53 in the Christian Science Hymnal:
Everlasting arms of Love
Are beneath, around, above;
God it is who bears us on,
His the arm we lean upon.
(John R. Macduff, adapt. © CSBD)
